



O ^:^z^^ 



GOVERNMENT OF THE PHILIPPINES. 



SPEECH 



Hon. RICH ARDF.PETTIGREW, 



OF SOUTH DAKOTA, 



SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 



Monday, Juns 4, and Tuesday, June 5) i9oo. 



;;^**-*^jSW 



o 




.,i^ 



WASHINGXOM. 
I 900. 



^VJ 






y 



d Off, 



c4 



r 






S P E E C H 

OF 

HON. EICHARD F. PETTTGEEW. 



The Senate having under consideration the bill (S. 23m) m relation to the 
supprossion of insurrection in, and to the government of, the Philippine 
Islands, ceded by Spain to the United States by the treaty concluded at Pans 
on the ioth day of December, 1898— 
Mr. PETTIGREW said: 

Mr. President: When the present session of Conijress convened 
six months ago, the Senate expecteJ and had aright to expect, and 
the American peoi^le expected, that the Administration in charge 
of the Government, in charge of events which were occurring m 
the Philippine Islands, would report to Congress the results of our 
operations in that distant country. A complete resume of every- 
thing- that had been done by our Army and our officers should 
have%een laid before both Houses of Congress, but it was not done. 
The public was well aware that some informat'.on in regard to what 
had been occurring in the Philippines had reached us through the 
censored press and the correspondence of our soldiers. That such 
information was meager, that it was uncertain, and that the tacts 
were hard to secure, w'as known to all. When Congress assembled, 
those statements regarding the situation which we had a right to 
expect were not forthcoming. December passed, and m January 
.resolutions were introduced in this body calling for important facts 
in connection with the war on the Filipinos. 

The resolutions introduced were promptly laid upon the table 
by the Administration majority in the Senate. Finally a resolu- 
tion prepared by the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. HoarJ 
passed the Senate, asking the Administration for a detailed ac- 
count of all its doings in connection with the Philippine Islands. 
We waited many weeks, and iinally a partial statement was sent 
in It did not cover the scope of the inquiry, and at the close of the 
session w^e are without the information. The report of the Presi- 
dent in answer to our resolution of inquiry concerning transactions 
in the Philippines did not convey all the truth. It contained only 
fragmentary selections from the record. All that has come tons m 
a direct way has been printed. I believe it is insufficient; that it 
does not cover the ground; that such information was withheld 
as the Administration desired to suppress; that the American peo- 
ple are no longer trusted by the party in power; they are no longer 
taken into the confidence of their administrative servants and 
intrusted with the facts. Proof conclusive that facts were with- 
held was furnished by the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. Spooner] 
in his speech a few days ago. He read from the printed reports 
which came from the Administration in reply to our resolutions; 
but Mr. President, he also read from manuscript, more than from 
anything else, that which was withheld from Congress, that which 
had not been furnished to the whole people. He read what was 
accessible to Administration Senators and not accessible to other 
members of the Senate. .,,,,, , .-u 

Congress is about to adjourn, the facts are withheld, and the 
American people are to go on another summer with such informa- 
4571 3 



Hon as tbey are able to gather without the confidence of an Ad- 
ministration that again asks for theii- votes. 

The friends of the Administration, the imperialists in this body, 
have comphxined that wc were unwilling to believe the officers of 
the Government and their statements regarding the situation in 
the Philiiipines. Mr. President, up to the time the treaty with 
Spain was sent to this body there is no doubt that the Adminis- 
tration sent us all the facts in its possession. Document G3 con- 
tains the story of our operations in the Philippines up to Novem- 
ber, 1898, Since that time, owing to a change in the policy of the 
Government, information upon this important subject has been 
withheld. We base our case on the arguments that have been 
made upon information drawn from Document No. 63, transmitted 
to us, accompanied by a message from the President. Aside from 
the matter contained in Document G3, we have been unable to 
secure facts, and we are accused of not believing what is said by 
the officers of the Government. 

We have reason, Mr. President, to question the veracity of the 
officers of the Government in their later utterances. There is no 
doubt that when our representatives first went to Manila they 
promised the people of those islands liberty and independence if 
they would help us destroy the Spanish power in the East. There 
is no doubt but what every American who talked with Aguinaldo 
and his followers gave them to understand that they would be 
assisted in setting tip a government. There is no doubt that our 
consuls and our generals and Admiral Dewey gave Aguinaldo 
such promises in abundance; but since we decided to conquer the 
Philippines, to destroy republics in Asia— since we decided to de- 
prive those people of the right to govern themselves, the reports we 
have received from our own officers are subject to question and to 
doubt— in the first jilace, because all the facts in possession of the 
Government have not been placed before us; and, in the second 
place, because we find our officers willing to pursue the course 
which Otis pursued, that of distorting the facts, or of changing 
the reports and placing a wrong construction upon words. It has 
been the general policy, from the President down, to deceive the 
IJfiblic. 

The commission we sent to the Philippines came baclv and made 
a partial report just before the election. This report is signed by 
Mr. J. G. Schurman, Admiral Dewey, Charles Denby, and Deaii 
C. Worcester, and in it they say: 

On tlio .irrival of the troops commandod by General Anderson at Cavito, 
Aguiuiildo was recjncstod by Admiral Dewey to evaciiato that place, and he 
moved his headquarters to' the neighboringr town of Bacoor. Now for the 
first time arose the idea of national independence. 

This appears to have been on the 4th day of July, 1898, and Ad- 
miral Dewey had been in the islands and had had dealings with 
Aguinaldo since the previous May. Mr. Schurman had undoubt- 
edly thoroughly investigated the question, but in order to make 
out a case which would justify the position they took in this re- 
port, they must insert a statement that Aguinaldo never had a 
notion that lie df sired independence until July 4, 1898. 

What are Ihe facts? They were known to Admiral Dewey. Ho 
must have known them, and Mr. Schurman mtist have known 
them; and yet they were willing to put forth a misleading state- 
ment, because it better suit 'd the purpose for which thej^ made 
their rr-port. It is stat:^ments of this sort, not fotinded upon the 
exact truth, but enunciiited for the purpose of deceiving the Amer- 
4.571 



ican people, that causes us to question what this commission, 
headed by Mr. Schurman, may say, and makes us doubt the in- 
formation which we receive from the Administration. 

Let us look back in the authentic record to the time when the 
Filipinos first declared that they desired independence. Consul 
Wildman tells us that a delegation of Filipinos came to him in 
November, 1S97, and said that in case of war with Spain — and 
this was months before war was declared — the Filipinos then in 
revolt would be glad to join us and be our allies; that they aspired 
to independence; and Mr. Wildman so notified the State Depart- 
ment; and the document is official 1 read from Senate Document 
No. 62, part 1, third session Filty-nfth Congress, on pages 300 
and 3C1. This is a letter from Aguinaldo to President McKinley, 
dated June 10, 1898: 

1 come to greet you with the most tender effusion of my soul, and to ex- 
press to you my deep and sincere gratitude in the name of the unfortunate 
Filipino people for the effloient and disinterested protection whicli you have 
decided to give it to shake off the yoke of the cruel and corrupt Spanish domi- 
nation, as you are doing to the equally unfortunate Cuba, which Spain wishes 
to see annihilated rather than free and independent. » * * 

I close by protesting once and a thousand times in the name of this people, 
* * * apeople whicli trusts blindly in you, not to abandon it to the tyranny 
of Spain, but to leave it free and independent, even if you make peace with 
Spain. 

Again, on June 18, 1898, on page 432 of Document 02, 1 find the 
following: 

I have proclaimed in the face of the whole world that the aspiration of my 
whole life, the tinal object of all my efforts and strength, is nothing else but 
your independence, for I am firmly convinced that that constitutes your con- 
stant desire and that independence signifies for us redemption from slavery 
and tyranny, regaining our liberty and entrance into the concert of civilized 
nations. 

Here, then, was an aspiration, an aspiration clearly expressedin 
the proclamation by Aguinaldo on Jiine 18, 1898. and yet our com- 
missioners say and Dewey, in whose hands this proclamation was, 
says to the American people, in November, 1898, that the first 
thought of Aguinaldo and his people had of independence was on 
the 4th of July, 1898. 

On page 434 of the same report appears the first article of the 
provisional constitution ijromulgated June 23, 1898, in which I 
find the following: 

The dictatorial government will be entitled hereafter the revolutionary 
government, whose object is to struggle for the independence of the Philip- 
pines until all nations, including the Spanish, .shall expressly recognize it, 
and to prepare the country so that a true republic may be established. 

What can be more plain, more distinct? And yet because it 
suited the purpose of the Administration previous to the election 
of 1898, our commissioners, Dewey joining, stated to the people of 
this country the falsehood that the Filipinos first thought of inde- 
pendence on July 4, 1898. 

On page 437 of Document 62, from the message of the Filipino 
president to his Congress, on June 23, 1898, on the desires of the 
Filipino government, 1 find the following: 

It struggles for its independence in the firm belief that the time has ar- 
rived in which it can and ought to govern itself. 

But back further than this we find the same record on page 351 
of Document No. 62, which was sent to us by the President of 
the United States. Here is an address to our consul, Mr. Pratt, 
by the Filipinos resident in S'ngapore, dated June 8, 1898: 

Our countrymen at home and those of us re.siding here, refugees from 
Spanish misrule and tyranny in our beloved native land, hope' that the 
United States, your nation, persevering in its humane policy, will efHca- 
4571 



cfously second the programme arranged between yon, sir, and General 
Agiiinaldo in this port of Singapore, and secure to us our mdependence un- 
der the protection of the United States. 

On page 353 we find Consul Pratt replying to the above ad- 
dress; and in that reply he says: 

I am thankful to have been the means, though merely the accidental 
means, of bringing about the arrangement between General Aguinaldo and 
Admiral Dewey, which has resulted Sf) happily. I can only hope that the 
eventual outcome will be all that can be desii'ed for the happiness and wel- 
fare of the Filipinos. 

Then, on page 346 of Document 62 I find the following procla- 
mation of the Filipino leaders in Hongkong before Aguinaldo 
sailed for Manila: 

Compatriots: Divine Providence is about to place independence within 
o\ir reach, and a way the most free and independent nation could hardly 
wish for. 

Aguinaldo, in a proclamation of May 8, 1898, to be found on 
page 431 of Document No. 63, says: 

Filipinos: The great nation, North America, cradle of true liberty and 
friendly on that account to our people, oppressed and subjugated by the 
tyranny and despotism of those who have governed us, has come to manifest 
even here a protec:tion which is decisive as well as disinterested toward us, 
considering us endowed with sufficient civilization to govern by ourselves 
this our unhappy land. 

So I say, Mr. President, it is not without cause that we doubt 
the recent statements of the officers of the Government so long as 
the Administration refuses to send to the Senate or to give to the 
American people the complete facts. 

Here is a report from Consul Wildman, at Hongkong, found in 
Document No. 62. It is dated Hongkong, July 18, 1898, and ad- 
dressed to Mr. Moore, the Assistant Secretary of State: 
Mr. Wildman to Mr. Moore. 

Consulate of the United States, 

Hongkong^ July IS, 1S9S. 
Sir : The insurgents are fighting for freedom from Spanish rule and rely 
upon the well known sense of justice that controls all the actions of our 
Government as to thoir future. 

In conclusion, I wish to put myself on record as stating that the insurgent 
government of tlie Pliilippino Islands can not be dealt with as though they 
were Nortli American luclians, willing to bo removed from one reservation 
to another at the whim of their masters. If the United States decides not to 
retain tlie Philippine Islands, its 10,(mo,000 people will demand independence, 
and the attempt of any foreign nation to obtain territory or coaling stations 
will be resisted with the same spirit with which they fought the Spaniards. 
I have the honor, etc., 

ROUNSEVELLE WILDMAN, 

Consul-GeiieraJ. 

What does Admiral Dewey say about this matter? On June 37, 
1898, Admiral Dewey sent to Secretary Long the following: 

I have given him (Aguinaldo) to understand that I consider insurgents as 
friends, being opposed to a common enemy. He has gone to attend a meeting 
of insurgent leaders for the purpose of forming a civil government. 

"For the purpose of forming a civil government!" And yet 
Admiral Dewey says to the people of the United States that the 
insurgents under Aguinaldo and Aguinaldo himself never thought 
of independence until the Fourth of July, although he telegraphed 
to the Secretary of the Navy on the 27th of June that he had gone 
to attend a meeting of insurgent leaders for the purpose of form- 
ing a civil government. 

Now, the fact of the matter is that in this interview Dewey ad- 
vised with Aguinaldo about the form of that government and about 
the steps to be taken to set it up. 

Admiral Dewey said: 

Aguinaldo has acted independently of the squadron, but has kept me ad- 
vised of his progress, which has been wonderful. I have allowed to pass by 

ion 



water recruits, arms, and amiminition and to take such Spanish arms and 
ammunition from the arsenal as he needed. Have advised frequently to con- 
duct the war humanely, which he has done invariably. 

And yet he now declares that Aguinaldo is not an ally; and Ad- 
miral Dewey further says in his recent utterances that there was 
no alliance; that his purpose was onlj- to use Aguinaldo to whip 
Spain. Yet Dewey telegraphed to the Secretary of the Navy that 
Aguinaldo was allowed to pass recruits, arms, and ammunition, 
and to have such Spanish arms and ammunition from tlie arsenal 
as he needed. He armed and consulted the insurgents about the 
whole operation: his (Aguinaldo"s) progress was otficially an- 
nounced to have been wonderful; and ytt there was no alliance! 
Mr. President, it is hardly necessary to comment further upon 
this subject. Any person who will look to ascertain what an al- 
liance is will find that the Philippine situation at that time con- 
stituted an alliance in every particular. 

I do not propose to question Admiral Dewey's veracity: but I 
am going to leave the public to decide that question upon the rec- 
ord which he has made. Compare his statements then and now 
and let them stand. Admiral Dewey says: 

I never promised him, directly or indirectly, independence for the Fili- 
pinos. I never treated him as an ally except so far as to make use of him 
and his solJiers to assist me in my operations against the Spaniards. He 
never uttered the word " independence " in any conversation with me or my 
officers. The statement tliat I received him with military honors or saluted 
the Filipino flag is absolutely false. 

He never treated Aguinaldo as an ally except for the purpose 
of using him and his soldiers to ''assist me in my operations 
against the Spaniards."' Well, who ever made fuller use of an 
ally in the world? Where was there ever a case? We might as 
well have claimed that in the Revolutionary war France was not 
an ally of the United States because we only used the French and 
their armed forces and soldiers to assist us in operations against 
England. 

But let us see, Mr. President, whether this is a fact. In the 
first place Admiral Dewey says he never saluted the flag of the 
Filipino republic. It is well known that shortly alter Aguinaldo 
had organized his forces a flag was adopted; that a ship was do- 
nated by one of the wealthy Filipinos to the government; that 
upon it was placed a battery of guns, and that it was used iu 
operations against the Spanish garrisons at different points. 

I looked up the question of a salute in the Century Dictionary. 
This is the definition of a salute: 

In the Army and Navy a compliment paid when troops or squadrons meet. 
There are many modes of performing a salute, ouch as firing cannon or small 
arms, dipping colors, presenting arms, manning the yards, cheering, etc. 

Webster says: 

A token of respect or honor for a foreign vessel or flag by a discharge of 
cannon, volleys of small arms, dipping the colors or the top sails, etc. 

Johnson's Universal Cyclopaedia gives about the same definition. 

I therefore wrote to Lieut. C. G. Calkins, who was on Dewey s 
ship in Manila Bay through the sixmmer of 1898, one of the officers 
on Dewey's own vessel, and here is what he says about it: 

Branch Hydrographic Office, 
San Francisco, Cat., March 2S, 1000. 
Dear Sir: In regard to salutes to the Philippine flag in Manila Bay or 
elsewhere, 1 am sati.'^ficd that no regular naval salute was ever rendered by 
any vessel of Admiral Dewey's fleet. A naval salute involves the flring of 
guns, and none of the vessels cruising under Aguiualdo's authority had a 
saluting battery or made any attempt to offer a formal salute. 

The references to salutmg in Filipino rejaorts are piobably due to the fact 
that their vessels in passing through our lines, as they wTjre freely allowed 
4571 



8 

to do diDDed their colors, and the Olympia and other shipsdid the same in 
response This might be called a salute by persons unacquainted with naval 
routine. 

Very respectfully, ^ ^ CALKINS. 

Hon. E. F. PETTroREW, „, , . , „^ 

Senate of the United States, nasiunoton, D. C. 

In other words, Mr. President, Admiral Dewey brands as an 
Tintiiialified falsehood the statement made by Aguinaldo and by 
others that he sainted their flag; and when we look to the Century 
Dictionary, to Webster "s Dictionary, or to Johnson's Universal 
Cycloua dia, we find tliat a salute may be dipping the colors; and 
the executive officer of the Ohjmpia says that they did dip their 
colors in response to the dipping of the colors of the Fihpmo ships 
as they passed by. 

Murat Halstead. who was one of the officers of the present Ad- 
ministration in the city of Manila, says in his book, The Story 
of the Philippines: 

Tlie Philippine flag is oriental in cut and color, having red and blue bars— 
a white obtuse angle— the base to the staff, and a yellow inoon with fantastic 
decorations occupying the field. This flag is one that Admiral Dewey salutes 
witiircspect. 

Halstead was over there in an official capacity. He says that: 

On the ITth I was appointed to take charge of the duties performed by the 
intendento general de hacienda or minister of tiuance and all fiscal affairs. 

Now, let us see how it Avas upon land. I have here a letter ad- 
dressed "To whom it may concern.'' It is signed by C. P. Van 
Houten, captain Company D, South Dakota Regiment, United 
States Volunteers. He says: 

State Headquahters Ajierican League, 

Canton, S. Dak., February S, 1900. 
To tvhom it may concern: 

On or about the middle of September, 1898, the Philippine troops marched 
by the First South Dakota Regiment in columns of four, and the First South 
Dakota Regiment, through general orders, saluted the Philippine army by 
turning out guard. 

C. P. VAN HOUTEN, 
E.v-Captain Company D, South Dakota Troops, United States Volunteers. 

H. E. GREENE, Sergeant. 

I have another: 

The Fifty-first Iowa Regiment saluted an armed body of insurgents near 
Calumpit during the stay of hostilities, and our men saluted the Filipino offi- 
cers at Cavite. 

This is signed 

E. E. HAWKINS, 
Lute Second Lieutenant Company B, First South Dakota Infantry. 

So it appears that we did salute the Filipino flag. It seemed to 
be very imi ortant on the part of the imperialists to show that 
such was not the fact. They seemed to think it absolutely neces- 
sary that it should not be established, because If they did salute 
the flag, if our olhcers helped arm them to fight the common 
enemy, they became our allies, and then in attacking them we 
attacked our allies. 

Mr. Bchuvman, one of these commissioners who went over 
there to negotiate with these people, makes the following state- 
ment: 

CoKNEi.T^ University, Office of the President, 

Ithaca, N. Y., Februarys, 1000. 
Dear Skx.vtor Dki'ew: Iseo, from page 13C2 of the Congressional Rec- 
ORii. that SiMiatnr Pettigisf.w, spoakinu; of myself, says: 

'■ The liict <>r the matter is that lio tried to bribe the insurgents, as near as 
wo can ascertain, and failed; but they would not take gold for peace." 
4571 



9 

Had this prenosterous statement been made anywhere else I should not 
have paid any attention to it, but as it has been made in the Sejiato of the 
United States I desire to say to you that it is absolutely without foundation. 
Very truly, yours, 

J. G. SCHURMAISr. 
Hon. Chauncet M. Depew, 

United States Senate, Washington, D. C. 

Now, let tis see whether it is without foundation or not. I go 
into this matter in detail, because I propose to show by the rec- 
ord that these men are not entitled to credit. Their statements 
will be used on the stump during the entire summer and fall. I 
quote from the Chicago Tribune of September 15, 1899, an inter- 
view purporting to be with Mr. Schurman, said to be authentic, 
never disputed except in this letter, which does not dispute the 
interview, but undertaices to dispute my statement that they 
undertook to bribe the insurgents: 

It is stated on authority that the Schurman Peace Commission offered 
every possible inducement short of ab.solute self-government to Aguinaldo 
and his followers. Aguinaldo was promised as the price of the restoration 
of peace in the Tagalo tribe a bonus of more than $5,0 lO a year while the Tag- 
alos remained peaceful. He was told that he could chose men from his tribe 
for the minor municipal offices. 

The commission, it is asserted, went so far as to promise Aguinaldo the 
moral support of the United States Government, if such were needed, to 
make his leadership of the Tagalos thoroughly secure. 

With all these inducements, tempting as they must have been, Aguinaldo, 
as the recognized head of the insurgent movement, declined to yield. He 
insisted upon immediate self-government, and, as his insistence was so firm, 
as to make an agreement impossible, the American commissioners ceased 
negotiations. 

I quote from an editorial in the Chicago Tribune of Septem- 
ber 21: 

President Schurman says Aguinaldo rejected with scorn an offer to take 
a salary of S.5,(X)0 and become governor of Tagals. 

I seems to me it is clearly proved that they did undertake to 
bribe the insurgents. Further, we all know they offered, and the 
offe^ is still open, §30 a gun for every arm they will surrender. 

Now, I am going to read from the only continuous, consecutive, 
and truthful, so far as I can ascertain, statement of affairs in the 
Philippines that has been published, and that is, the statement by 
Aguinaldo, giving a history of the Philippine revolt from its be- 
ginning up to last fall. It is the only consecutive statement we 
have. The Administration refuses to furnish one; has concealed 
the information, and has refused to send to us the facts which are 
in its possession. So far they have been unable to impeach this 
statement in any material particular, and it has been corroborated 
in very many particulars. Aguinaldo says that the flag of the 
Filipino republic was saluted. 

Ah I what a beautiful, inspiring, joyous sight that flag was, flutteringin the 
breeze from the topmasts of our vessels, side by side, as it were, with the 
ensigns of other and greater nations, among whose mighty war ships our lit- 
tle cruisei-s passed to and fro dipping their colors, the ensign of liberty and 
independence! 

******* 

Admiral Dewey said his reply to the French and German admirals was— 
with his knowledge and consent the Filipinos used that flag, and, apart from 
this, he was of opinion that in view of the courage and steadfastness of pur- 
po.se displayed in the war against the Spaniards the Filipinos deserved the 
right to use their flag. 

I am going to ask to place in the Record as a pai*t of my remarks, 
without reading, the report of Robert M. Collins, of the Associ- 
ated Press, in which he makes a statement in detail in response 
4571 



10 

to the Associated Press managers of this country, with regard to 
the suppression of news and the total unreliability of Mr. Otis in 
his statements during the summer of 1899, last year. I will read 
the ])rotest of the Manila correspondents, presented to Otis July 
9 and cabled from Hongkong July 17, 1899. 

The nndersigned, being all staff correspondents of American newspapers 
stationed at Manila, nnite in the following statement: We believe that owing 
toofli<ial di.-patches from Manila made public in Washington the people of 
the United States have not received a correct impression of the situation in 
the Philii)i)ines, but that these dispatches have presented an ultra optimistic 
view that is not shared by the general officers in the field. 

We believe the dispatches incorrectly represent the existing conditions 
among the Philippines in respect to dissension and demoralization resulting 
from the American campaign and to the brigand character of their army. 

Wo believe the dispatches err in the declaration that "The situation is well 
in hand," and in the assumption that the insurrection can be speedily ended 
without a greatly increased force. 

We think the tenacity of the Filipino purpose has been underestimated, 
and that the statements are unfounded that volunteers are willing to enlist 
in further service. 

The censorship has compelled us to participate in this misrepresentation 
l)y existing or altering uncontroverted statements of facts on the plea, as 
General Otis stated, that "they would alarm the people at home," or "have 
the people of the United States by the ears." 

Specifications: Prohibition of hospital reports; suppression of full reports 
of field operations in the event of failure; numbers of heat prostrations in the 
field; systematic minimization of naval operations, and suppression of com- 
plete reports of the situation. 

ROBERT M. COLLINS, 
JOHN P. DUNNING, 
L. JONES, 

The Associated Press. 

JOHN T. McCUTCHEON, 
HARRY ARMSTRONG, 

Chicago Record. 
OSCAR K. DAVIS, 

P. G. McDonnell, 

New York Sun. 

JOHN F. BASS, 
WILL DINWIDDIE, 

A'ejy York Herald. 

E. D. KEANE, 

Scri2)ps-McRae Association. 
RICHARD LITTLE, 

Chicago Tribune. 

The Associated Press thereupon wrote to their correspondent 
in the Philippines to ascertain the truth of this statement, and 
Mr. Collins makes a reply which I ask to have printed in the 
Rfx'OUD. I will read an extract from it: 

The censorship enforced during the war and before the beginniiig of it 
was, according to newspaper men who had worked in Japan, Turkey, Greece, 
Egypt, and Russia in war times, and in Cuba under the' Weyler regime and 
during our war, so much more stringent than any hitherto attempted that 
we were astonished that the American authorities should countenance it, 
and were confident that public opinion would be overwhelmingly against it 
if its methods and purposes became known. 

Here, then, was a censorship of the press more thorough than that 
practiced by any despotic nation in the world, according to these 
newspapers correspondents, and yet we are asked to believe every- 
thing that Mr. Otis says: 

But when General Otis came down in the frank admission that it was not 
intended so much to prevent the newspapers from giving information and 
assistanc(» to tlio enemy (the legitimate function, and, according to our view, 
the only lei^^itiinHti' one of a censorship), but to keep the knowledge of con- 
ditions here I'rom the ])ublic at home, and when the censor had repeatedly 
told us, in ruling out plain statements of undisjDuted facts, "My instructions 
are to let nothing go that can hurt the Administration," we concluded that 
protest was justifiable. 

****♦♦* 

4571 



11 

In this w9,y the entire American press was made the personal organ of 
Otis. We were compelled to send nothing but tiie official view of all events 
and conditions, even when the official view controverted the opinions of the 
great mass of the officers in the field and of intelligent residents and was a 
falsification of events which passed before our eyes. In this way every fi.ght 
became a glorious American victory, even though everyone in the army 
knew it to have been substantially a failure, and we were drilled into writing 
quite mechanically wholly ridiculous estimates of the number of Filipinos 
killed, knowing that if we wrote any other description than the sort being 
telegraphed to the War Department our work would be wasted. 

For this sort of work Mr. Otis is to be promoted. I will not 
read more of this report, but I desire, as I said before, to have it 
printed as a part of my remarks. 

The matter referred to is as follows: 

WORKINGS OF OTIS'S CENSORSHIP. 

The following is the letter to the general manager of the Associated Press 
from the correspondent in the Philippines, called forth by a request for an 
explanation of his reason for signing the protest of the correspondents against 
the censorship. It was written for the information of the general manager 
of the Associated Press: 

Manila, P. I., July 30, 1S99. 
Melville E. Stone, Esq., 

General Manricjer the Associated Press, Chicago, U. S. A. 

My Dear Mr. Stone: Your request for a detailed record of all circum- 
stances leading to the statement cabled to the newspapers by all the coiTe- 
r^pondonts in Manila is just received. In the beginning, it should be explained 
that the correspondents had the question of taking some united action to se- 
cure the right to send the facts about the war, or, failing in that, to explain 
to our papers and the public why we were not telling the facts two months 
before the cablegram was released. 

The censorship enforced during the war and before the beginning of it was, 
according to newspaper men who had worked in Japan, Turkey, Greece, 
Egypt, and Russia in war times, and in Cuba under the Weyler regime and 
during our war, so much more stringent than any hitherto attempted that 
we were astonished that the American autliorities should countenance it, 
and were confident that public opinion would be overwhelmingly against it 
if its methods and purposes became known. 

For a long time we submitted to the censorship because of appeal to our 
patriotism and a feeling that we might be acctised of a lack thereof if we made 
any trouble for the American authorities here. 

But when General Otis came down in the frank admission that it was not 
intended so much to prevent the newspapers from giving information and 
assistance to the enemy (the legitimate function and, according to our view, 
the only legitimate one of a censorship), but to keep the knowledge of condi- 
tions here ifrom the public at home; and when the censor had repeatedly told 
us. in ruling out plain statements of undisputed facts, " My instructions are 
to let nothing go tbat can hurt the Administration," we concluded that pro- 
test was justifiable. 

Otis had gained the idea from the long submission by newspaper men to 
his dictation that it was a part of the Governor-General to dii'ect the news- 
paper correspondents as he did his officers. Much of the censorship was 
conducted by him personally, the censor sending a correspondent to the Gen- 
eral with any dispatch about which he had doubts. The process of passing 
a message was identical with the correction of a composition by a schoolmas- 
ter, Otis or the cen-or striking out what displeased him and inserting what 
he thought should be said, or, what came to the same thing, telling the cor- 
re.spondent he must say certain things if his story was to go. 

In this way the entire American press was made the personal organ of 
Otis; we were compelled to send nothing but the official view of all events 
and conditions, even when the official view controverted the opinions of the 
great mass of the ofiicers in the field and of intelligent residents and was a 
falsification of events which passed before our eyes. In this way every fight 
became a glorious American victory, even though everyone in the army 
knew it to have been substantially a failure, and we were drilled into writing 
quite mechanically wholly ridiculotis estimates of the numbers of Filipinos 
killed, knowing that if we wrote any other description than the sort being 
telegraphed to the War Department our work would be wasted. 

Repeated appeals made by all the correspondents to their papers to secure 
change in censorship methods had been fruitless, and as conditions steadily 
grew worse and failure was piled upon failure while we were sending rose- 
colored pictures of successful war and inhabitants flocking to the American 
standard, the repeated suggestions of correspondents tliat ''we must do 
something" resulted in a formal meeting. 
i571 



12 




woiild •I'^sist tlie enemy, and I thouRlit it bad better be signed bj- the names 
of tlio orsanizat ions and papers represented than by our names, because their 
display might bo construed into a desire for personal advertisement. Tlie 
others thought we should send a statement of the conditions, with an expla- 
nation to the public why our reports had been so misleading. . 

On comparing notes we found that we had among us learned the views of 
all the American generals and most of the other prominent men in Manila 
whose opinions were worth consideration, and that there was a practical 
unanimity of opinions of the situation. The dispatch prepared was an 
epitome of those opinions. These men had told us cinitinually that our re- 
ports were misleading the people at liome, and that it was our duty to tell 
them how affairs were going: indeed, the pressure upon us to tell the 
truth " from Army officers of high rank and men of all classes has been 
something tremendous, and we have been accused of cowardice and all sorts 

Before taking any steps we concluded to talk with Otis, and he made vague 
promises of greater liberality in the censorship, as he had done before, and 
assured us, as he had done times innumerable since the beginning of the war, 
that the insurrection was on the verge of collapse; that he was about to 
administer the final blow, and that he knew these things from invaluable 
private sources, which would be absolutely convincing if he was at liberty 
to reveal them to us. ,. ., ,^ .r. ^ i.i >. 

Then followed a month of history repeating itself. Before the movement 
of Antipolo, Taypay, and Moroug we were told that it must inevitably result 
in the capture and destruction of Pilar's army of li.OOU or 3,0U1) men; then the 
same predictions were made of the movement to the south of Cavite 1 rov- 
ince; next, the collapse was about to come through the surrender of General 
Trias, who would bring over his army. .. ^. ■ .. a. 

About the middle of June I wrote a conservative review to the eftect that 
everyone here was convinced that it would be impossible to end the war dur- 
ing the rainy season and for some time.thereaf ter, unless heavy reenforce- 
ments wore sent. 

The censor's comment (I made note of it) was: "Of course we all know 
that we are in a terrible mess out here, but we do not want the people to get 
excited about it. If you fellows will only keep quiet now, we will pull through 
in time without any fuss at home." 

Ho took the story to General Otis, who said: "Tell Collins that if be will 
hold that for a week or ten days, he will thank me for not letting him send 
it,'" and when I went to see him repeated the same old story about the in.sur- 
rection going to pieces, and hinted so portentously about having wonderful 
things up his sleeve that I almost believed him in the face of past experiences 
of the same sort. The other men had practically the same experience, each 
one trying to got through a story of how matters stood at the beginning of 
the rainy season, then on. 

So, after waiting a month for the General's predictions to materialize, we 
decided to send the statement we had framed without clanging it, as the 
conditions had not changi^d since it was written. Its form was not what I 
wanted, because I thought a correspondent of the Associated Press should 
not assume to give his own views upon any question: but, on the other Jiand, 
it was that or nothing. The views were not our personal views, but the views 
of r^awton, MacArthur, Punston, "Wheatou,et al.,and we could not be accused 
of prejudice against the Administration, because the strongest Administration 
organ in the country was committed to the plan; and, moreover, the attempt 
to hold the newspapers by the throat was so unusual that unusual action 
seemed to be justified and demanded. 

As a matter of form, we took the message to the censor. His comment 
was practically the same that ho had made on my message. He did not ques- 
tion the accuracy of the statement of conditions, but said: "This is ju.':t the 
sort of matter the censorship is intended to suppress." He, of course, took it 
to Otis, who in turn sent a messenger requesting Davis, of the New York Sun, 
to go and see him, doubtless thinking that as he had treated the Sun as his 
organ, and its correspondents being under obligations to him for .special 
favors, he could work them to give ifp the plan. Thompson said he (Thomp- 
son) thought CoUii'S and McCutcheon should go also, as their views had 
always been conservative, etc. A committee was chosen — Davis, McCutclioon, 
Bass, and I. 

When we were ushered into Otis's room ho said with some anger: "Gen- 
tlemen, you have served an extraordinary paper upon me. You accuse me 
of falsehood. This constitutes a con.spiracy against the Government. I will 
liave you tried by a general court-martial and let you choo?o the judges." 
We knew from experience with threats to "Put you oft' the island" that 
4.571 



13 

there was nothing to he frightened ahont, and also knew that all the officers 
who would be on a conrt-martial would know we told the truth. 

Three hours of exceedingly plain talk followed. The general did not con- 
tradict our statements that the purpose of the censorship was to keep the 
facts from the public, but said that what we wanted was to have the people 
stirred up and make sensations for the papers. We told him that there had 
never been any subject furnishing more good material for sensations than 
this war, and that he should be exceedingly grateful to the papers for han- 
dling it so temperately. 

In that connection we reminded him that the stories of looting m soldiers' 
letters home had been little, if any, exaggerated. Davis and Bass told him 
they had personally seen our soldiers bayoneting the wounded, and I re- 
minded him that the cutting off of the ears of two American soldiers at Das- 
marinas had been merely retaliation for similar mutilations of dead Filipinos 
by the Americans. ( No one could possibly tell stronger stories of the looting 
and blackmailing by our soldiers than Otis has told, although he charges it 
all to the volunteers.) 

"We told him that we had refrained from sending these things and others 
of similar nature because wo did not wish to make sensations. We told him 
that the censorship was purely for the purpose of giving the impression at 
home that everything was lovely here, otherwise he would suppress the local 
papers, which print all sorts of clippings from the American papers, denounc- 
ing the Administration, and which keep the enemy posted on the position of 
every company in our Army and even give advance notice of intended 
movements. 

Dealing with the specifications, we said that the hospital officers refused 
to give us any information as to the number of sick, on the ground that he 
had instructed them to withhold such facts from the papers; also that ho had 
reported to Washington a percentage of 7i sick wlien the surgeons agreed 
that from 20 to :W per cent of the command was sick; that not more than 10 
per cent of some regiments were fit for duty, and that the hospital force was 
entirely inadequate, as well as the hospital room, so that they were compelled 
to discharge hundreds of men who were really sick to make room for more 
urgent cases. 

His reply was that the hospitals were full of perfectly well men who were 
shirking and should be turned out. To send home figures of the numbers in 
hospitals would be entirely misleading. 

We reminded him that while he had been reporting to Washington that 
"the volunteers will render willing service until relieved,"' the same volun- 
teers were sending regimental petitions to the governors of their States to 
use every influence to secure their recall; that some regiments had petitioned 
him to relieve them from duty; that the members of various regiments had 
at certain stages of the war been in a frame of mind closely resembling mu- 
tiny; that the members of the Third Artillery, who had enlisted tor the war 
with Spain, had threatened to stack their guns on the 4th of July unless dis- 
chai'ged. 

In the matter of prejudice against the Navy, it was stated on the part of 
the correspondents that all were compelled to change their accounts of the 
taking of lloilo to make it appear that the Army had done the work with 
immaterial assistance from the war ships, and that only a few houses were 
burned. The unquestioned facts, told in the original stories, were that the 
soldiers did not land until three hours after the marines had raised the flag 
and chased the insurgents out. 

General Otis explained that the Navy was so anxious for glory that it dis- 
obeyed instructions by landing before the proper time, etc., although the coi'- 
respondents would not have been permitted to send that explanation had 
they known it, and were forced to give an entirely false account of what oc- 
curred. The fact is questioned by no one that almost all of the business 
quarter and much of the other sections were burned. 

I reminded him that two stories by Dunning describing the work of the 
Navy in patrolling the coast and taking prizes were '■killed"' without reason, 
and the others agreed that the entire attititde of the censorship toward the 
Navv has been one of prejudice and discrimination. There seemed to be a 
childish fear that the Navy would get some advertising. The censor and Otis 
himself always made us refer to the gimboats operated by Captain Grant 
as "Army gunboats," in their eagerness to keep the Navy from getting any 
credit not its due. 

Regarding the suppression of the reports of field operations which were 
failures, we told the General that the whole purpose of most of the important 
movements, beginning with the advance from La Loma Church in March, 
had been to rotind up and capture or force the surrender of various divisions 
of the Filipino army; that all of them had failed to accomplish this, yet we 
had been obliged to represent that Otis was accomplishing just what he in- 
tended and winning a series of glorious successes and administering no end 
of final crushing blows. 

Otis is a hard man to argue with or to pin down to any definite proposi- 
tion, and his explanation of the failure of Hall's expedition the first week in 
4571 



14 

Juno was cli.iracteristic. He said: "Bnt how could we capture thein when 
they were not there? They all got out the night before we started, and there 
were not :i,0(K) we found, but only Cdll."' 

Wo rehearsed in detail the ol),iections to the censorship, which T have out- 
lined in tlie beginning of this letter. There was no question of the fact that 
lie had not allowed us to send full reports of the conditions here unless those 
ici)i)rts were reflections of his own views. We asked that when there were 
dill'erent vii'ws held by people whose opinions were worthy of consideration 
we should De allowed toe.Kplain the various views and phases of the question, 
instead of echoing his opinions as though they were rock-ribbed and unim- 
peachable facts. 

Davis said: "When I returned to Manila, I asked what I would be per- 
mitted to send, and you told me all facts, news about military operations not 
helpful to the enemy, and my opinions as opinions." All of the committee 
agrL-ed that the fulfillment of that rule would l)e satisfactory, and I disclaimed 
any desire to send my personal opinions f(;r the Associated Press. General 
Bates was present throughout the interview. At the close General Otis 
turned to him and asked, "What would vou do with these' gentlemen, Gen- 
eral?" 

Bates promptly replied: " I would do what I said." 

"Court-martial them?" Otis asked. 

"No, let them send what you promised, the facts, and opinions as opin- 
ions." IBates said. 

The next morning Otis sent for Davis and tried to talk him over. Among 
other things he complained that he did not clearly understand what we 
wanted. Wishing to give him a chance to establish a reasonable censorship, 
we sent another committee with a written request that v/e be allowed to 
send all facts not useful to the enemy and describe the different views of the 
situation when it was open to differences of opinion. The committee thrashed 
over the same gi-ound several hours, and the result was a statement in ofiect 
that we might send anything which in his opinion was "not prejudicial to 
the interests of the United States." 

That did not change our position in the least, because he had always con- 
strued as damaging to the Government any story tending to carry the small- 
est inference that his acts and policies were not entirely successful and in- 
dorsed by the whole army. He also appointed a new censor, although we 
had told him that would not be the slightest relief unless the system was 
changed, and he promised to keep the censor fully posted on all events, an 
arrangement which he has not carried into execution. 

There were two or three days of improvement and greater liberality in 
the censorship; then it dropped into the old rut. One of our complaints had 
been that Otis himself was practically the censor; that whenever we pre- 
sented stories which the censor had doubts concerning the iiolicy of, or deal- 
ing with matters he was ignorant of, he would send us to Otis, and we often 
wasted hours waiting in an anteroom and then perhaps were unable to se- 
cure an audience. We asked him to give the censor exclusive jurisdiction in 
the field and keep him posted on all events, giving him access to official re- 
ports from the front. This he declared would be impossible. Therefore wo 
sent the telegram. 

General Otis had complained of the language as an accusation of deliberate 
falsehood. We assured him we had no intention of conveying the idea that 
he had reported to Washington anything he did not believe to be true, and 
we softened the language to avoid the possibility of any such construction. 
He also .said that the War Department had made publiconly tlie more opti- 
mistic of his reports, and we amended the dispatch to make plain that we re- 
ferred only to those reports which the Department had given out. 1 inclose 
a copy of the original version. 

We were entirely ignorant when we sent the message that something like 
an agitation against the policy in the Philippines was then afoot in America. 
So far as I can learn our action met the entire ai)proval of everyone in Ma- 
nila except Otis and the members of his personal staff who would feel bound 
to support him under any conditions. 

The position of tlie iiewsi)aper corre.spoudents here is, as it has been from 
the beginning, most difficult. 




jump on till' meinbei s of his staff. 

Such stri 
issu( 



ich stri.t orders agamsttalkmg to newspaper men have been repeatedly 

•d that when wo go about heatlciuarters the officers avoid us as thouo-h 

wo had smallpox, because they are afraid to be seen talking with °°"'"" 

refuses to give us pa.sses to go about the city after the closing he 




4571 



i 



15 

nature, are denied us. It is impossible to maintain any system of correspond- 
ence from Iloilo and the other islands except by mail, as the officials in those 
places, under orders from headquarters, exercise a censorship practically 
prohibitive over the cable. , . ^ ^^ - i. 

Instances of the suppression of new^s to prove that the sole mtent of the 
authorities is to suppress accounts of the real situation here could be multi- 
plied if it was necessary, but the repeated assertions of the censor that he 
was instructed to permit nothing to go of a political nature- nothing that 
could reflect tipon the Army or "create a bad impression at home "—leaves 
no doubt on that point. Such items as courts-martial have been ruled out, 
with the explanation: "I am here to protect the honor of the Army." 

Recently I filed what I thought a most inofi'ensive statement that the busi- 
ness men who had appeared before the commission had advocated the reten- 
tion of the existing silver svstem of currency. The censor said: "I ought 
not to let that go. That would be a lift for Bryan. My instructions are to 
shut off everything that could hurt McKinley"s Administration. That is tree 
silver." I explained that the .silver system here was not IG to 1, and with 
seeming reluctance he O. K.'d the item. 

The charge that we cared for nothing but to make sensations for our pa- 
pers is most unjust, for I doubt if ever a body of newspaper men were more 
conservative in the presence of unlimited provocation for sensationalism. 
There have been three or four instances which I now recall of conduct by our 
soldiers resembling the episode of the Seventy-first iXew York in Cuba, 
which were matters of common knowledge here, and which none of us has 
attempted to cable nor desired to. 

There has been, according to Otis himself and the personal knowledge of 
everyone here, a perfect orgy of looting and wanton destruction of property 
and most outrageous blackmailing of the natives and Chinamen in Manila, 
and various incidents like the shooting down of several Filipinos for attempt- 
ing to run from arrest at a cock fight, not to mention courts-martial of offi- 
cers for cowardice, a.nd the dismissal of General ■ for getting hoDclessly 

drunk on the eve of two important battles— all of which the correspondents 
have left untouched by common consent. 

Also, there are the usual number of Army scandals and intrigues which 
we have not aired, foremost among them the fact— it is universally consid- 
ered a fact in the Army— that Otis is deeply prejudiced against and jealous 
of Lawton. and has done everything in his power to keepLawtou in the back- 
ground and prevent him from making a reputation. 

As a correspondent of the Associated Press, I am supposed to have no 
opinion, but in writing of events like this war one must necessarily, to con- 
vey anv idea of the trend of affairs, go somewhat into the field of description 
of conditions, etc., which are in the final analysis matters of opinion. In do- 
ing so I have endeavored merely to reflect the views of the great majority 
of'well-informed people. Whether I have done so correctly you can easily 
judge by referring to the stories I sent ''via Hongkong" soon after my ar- 
rival and afterwards (one on the 7th of April saying that notwithstanding 
the optimistic official view the war was likely to be a long one and that 
liiO.OtK) men would be needed to end it). You will notice also that the tone of 
the Hongkong dispatches was decidedly different from those sent from 
Manila direct. The only time General Otis has given us any freedom was 
during his row with Schurmaa over the peace negotiations, when (by insin- 
uation and those attempted diplomatic methods which public men seem to 
think newspaper men do not see through) he was encouraging us to roast 
Schurman and take his side. 

The secret of the whole trouble here is that the Government has left a 
small man to deal with the most delicate problems, requiring broad states- 
manship. Everyone agrees that Otis is honest, and that covmts for much in 
a position affording such chances for dishonesty, but everybody agrees also, 
with most remarkable unanimity, that he has bungled affairs from the begin- 
ning: that the war might have "been avoided by tact, and might have been 
ended before now by some other plan of campaign than slashing aimlessly 
about, taking a town to-day, deserting it to-morrow, retaking it the next 
week— and by diplomacy. 

The Hongkong press, which has always championed the American side of 
the Philippine question, reflects the feeling of most people here in an edi- 
torial beginning: ''It is not difficult to imagine the disgust and indignation 
that would bo felt and expressed in the United States when once the country 
awoke to the real condition of affairs in the Philippines. There has been 
mismanagement of the grossest description." 

I wish the etiquette of officialdom might permit Dewey and Schurman to 
speak to McKinley and the public concerning Otis as freely as they have to 
newspaper men. Those two are the only men of the caliber of statesmen the 
Government has sent here, and Schurman has the college professor's weak- 
ness of believing that all other men, including Malays, were as sincere in 
what they said as himself. 

Otis is a bureaucrat who never leaves his desk, has never seen his soldiers 
in the field, and insists upon managing both the civil and military brauche-i; 
4571 



16 

nf thfl ''ovcrnmont, altliongli either one would fully occupy an able man. be- 
cause he trusts no one but himself, and withal has a faculty for antagomzmg 
everyone with whom he has to deal, as he has antagonized the newspaper 

™*'°' Very truly, yours, ROBERT M. COLLINS. 

Mr PETTIGREW. Mr. President, we have before us a bill to 
continue the authority which the President has been heretofore 
exercising until the revolt in the Philippines is suppressed: 
A bill (S 2355) in relation to the suppression of insurrection in, and to the 

government of, the Philippine Islands, ceded by Spain to the United States 

by the treaty concluded at Paris on the 10th day of December, 1898. 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States 
of America in Conqress assembled. That when all insurrection against the 
sovereignty and authority of the United States in the Philippine Islands, ac- 
quired from Spain by the treaty concluded at Pans on the 10th day of Decem- 
ber 1898 shall have been completely suppressed by the military and naval 
forces of the United States, all military, civil, and judicial powers necessary 
to govern the said islands shall, until otherwise provided by Congress, be 
vested in such person and persons, and shall be exercised in such manner as 
the President of the United States shall direct for maintaining and protect- 
ing the innabitants of said islands in the free enjoyment of their hberty, 
property, and religion. 

And this, after a six months' session of Congress, is all that the 
Administration offers in this connection. We are told that when 
all resistance is suppressed the President is to govern the Philip- 
pine Islands as an emperor (without restraint, without advice, 
absolute despotic power enforced by an army) would govern his 
empire. We are asked to vest in him authority greater than that 
enjoyed to-day by any other person ruling over any other people 
on the face of the globe. Yet, while this bill when It was intro- 
duced was undoubtedly the policy of the Administration, it ap- 
pears that it has now been abandoned, and the intention is that 
Congress shall adjourn and that nothing will be done. I read in 
the morning paper what purports to be an interview sent back 
from Manila by Judge Taft, of the new peace commission which 
we have sent to the Orient. He says: 

I am surprised that Manila has not received news regarding the Spooner 
bill, a measure calculated to help us greatly in our work here. 

In other words, when Mr. Taft sailed for the Philippines the 
programme evidently was to pass the Spooner bill and make him 
the civil governor, or rather the despot, of the Philippine Islands, 
with all power in his hands; and he is surprised that the news 
has not reached Manila of the Spooner bill. Why? Because the 
Administration has changed its policy and there is no purpose or 
intention on the part of the party in power to pass this measure. 

It is said that we are encouraging the Filipinos by discussing 
this question. Mr. President, I hope my voice will never be raised 
except in encouragement of every aggregation of people through- 
out the world of every race who are struggling for independence, 
I care not what color or where th. y live, who are striving to es- 
tablish a government based upon the principles of our Constitu- 
tion and our Dechivation of Independence. 

Mr. President. I offered the following amendment as a substi- 
tiite for the bill introduced by the Senator from Wisconsin, which 
I present as embodying what I think ought to be done in this con- 
nection: 

That all hostile demonstrations on the part of the armed forces of the 
United States in the Philippine Islands shall at once cease, and that we otfer 
to the p(»opl(' of said islands selt-government based upon the principles of 
our Constitutiiin and the Declaratimi of Independence, and that negotiation 
on this basis be at onc(; opened with tlie existing native government for a set- 
tlement of all dilTerenccs, with a view to the speedy withdrawal of our armed 
forces, and tliat full ant luirity is vested in the President of the United States 
to carry out the provisions of this act. 
4571 



17 

I propose that we shall cease all armed hostile demonstration 
against the people of those islands, that we shall negotiate with 
them and at once to set np a government patterned after our own, 
after the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the 
United States. 

It is said on the part of the imperialists in this body that by 
advocating this course we are giving aid, comfort, and encourage- 
ment to the enemies of our country. This I deny. Mr. President, 
the people of the Philippines are not the enemies of my country. 
What have they done to us that we can charge them with being 
the enemies of the people of the United States? They joined us 
in a contest to drive Spain from the Philippine Islands. They 
were our allies and fought by our side. They took 9,000 Spanish 
prisoners. They laid down their lives in great numbers in order 
to fight a common foe. They captured the entire Spanish garri- 
sons in the Philippine Islands, except in the city of Manila, and 
invested that so that the Spaniards were unable to escape. What 
have they done to us? Nothing but resist aggression, nothing but 
combat our forces attacking them and undertaking to destroy 
their liberties. If we would cease hostile demonstration against 
the people of the Philippines, do you think they would attack us? 
Do you believe for one moment there would be any difficulty in 
establishing the mostcordial and friendly relations? Why should 
we go on with this war of conquest? 

Have we any other title to these islands than conquest? It is 
true that our opponents dispute upon that question. Some of 
them say that we acquired title by purchase. I think that is the 
view of the Administration: I think that was the view of the 
Senator from Wisconsin; but others who undertake to justify this 
course of asgression claim that we acquired title by conquest. 

3lr. FAIRBANKS. Will the Senator from South Dakota per- 
mit me to interrupt him? I think he misunderstood the position 
of the Senator from Wisconsin. Ke expressly denied that the 
Government acquired the Philippines by purchase. 

Mr. PETTIGRE W. Does he contend that we acquired them by 
conjuest? 

Mr. FAIRBANKS. That is as I understand the Senator's posi- 
tion; at least, he disclaimed the proposition that we acquired them 
bv purchase. 

"Mr. PETTIGREW. I think he was perfectly right in disclaim- 
ing the proposition that we acquired them by purchase; and if 
that is the case, and I presume the Senator from Indiana is right, 
I accept the correction. I will read from Kent's Commentaries, 
volume 1, page 177: 

With respect to the cession of places or territories by a treaty of peace, 
though the treaty operates from the making of it, it is a principle of piibhc 
lav,' tliat the national character of the place agreed to be surrendered by 
treaty continues as it was under the character of the ceding country until 
it be actually transferred. Full sovereignty can not be held to have passed 
by the mere words of the treaty witliout actual delivery. To complete the 
right of property, the right to the thing and the posse.ssion of the thing must 
be united. This is a necessary principle in the law of property in all systems 
of .iurisprudence. * * * This general law of property applies to the right 
of territory no less than to other rights. 

I read also from a treatise on international law. by Mr. Baker, 
published recently in Boston by Little, Brown & Co.: 

In modern times sales and transfers of national territory to another power 
can only be made by treaty or some solemn act of the sovereign authority of 
the state. And such transfers of territory do not include the allegiance of 
its inhabitants without their consent, express or implied. 



18 
At page 355 the same author says: 

The rule of public law with respect to the allegriance of the inhabitants of 
acouqnercxl territory is, therefore, no longer to bo interpreted as meaning 
that it is absolutely and unconditionally acquired by conquest, or transferred 
and handed over by treaty as a thing assignable by contract and without the 
assent of the subject. 

On the contrary, the express or implied assent of the subject is now re- 
garded as essential to a complete new allegiance. 

What are the facts in regard to the Philippines: We could not 
purchase title unless they could deliver possession of the property 
purchased. The facts are simply these: When we decided to at- 
tack Spain, when Dewey was ordered to sail from Hongkong and 
to destroy the Spanish fleet, a rebellion was going on in the Phil- 
ippine Islands. The inhabitants of those islands were trying to 
throw off the Spanish yoke. Knowing that at Singapore there 
was a man the most capable among the Filipinos who led a former 
revolt, our officers in the East induced this man to go back to 
Manila and organize the insurgent forces. Aguinaldo arrived on 
the 17th day of May, 1898. He immediately organized the insurgent 
forces. He purcliased arms in Hongkong. Admiral Dewey fur- 
nished him witli arms taken from the Spanish forces, and he at- 
tacked the Spanish garrisons all over the province of Cavite and 
secured arms from his prisoners. He pursued this course during 
the summer of 1898, until he had captured the entire island of 
Luzon except two Spanish garrisons, very small ones, and before 
winter he captured those. Dewey in his report says his progress 
was wonderful. He took 9,000 prisoners. After having captured 
the entire island he set up a government, which was a peaceful 
government, a government suitable to those people, a government 
which protected life and property throughout the entire area of 
that countr}'. He also captured the southern islands, the island 
of Panay, of Cebu, and Negros, and organized governments there. 

He assembled an army of 30,000 men and surrounded Manila. 
His army was intrenched. He invested the city on the land side, 
while our Xavy blockaded the port on the ocean side. "We acted 
in absolute concert v/ith each other, consulted together, and when 
Manila was finally taken our troops landed, asking the insurgents 
to give up about a quarter of a mile of their trenches. They 
marched out and allowed our troops to occupy a portion of their 
works. They believed that they were to act in concert with us in 
the attack upon Manila. When the attack was ordered, their 
troops marched into the city along Svith ours. They took the 
principal suburbs of Manila. We took and occupied the walled 
city. When they came to the walled city, which contained less 
than one-fifth of the population of the city of Manila, they found 
our bayonets turned against them. They were told that they 
could not enter. They had lost thousands of lives in their con- 
test with Spain. They were in possession of that entire country, 
and yet, although in the assault upon the city of Manila they had 
lost more men than we did, they were denied admittance to the 
city, and they yielded and occupied the suburbs for some time. 

Finally we requested that they retire from the suburbs, and 
they retired. Aguinaldo asked that he might be permitted to retire 
slowly, as it was difficult to govern his people and convince them 
that it was right that they should surrender possession of territory 
which they had conquered and for which nianv of their comrades 
had laid down their lives. He also asked that in case we made a 
treaty with Spain the territory which he had conquered should be 
restored to him, and this we ref nsed. So we did not conquer the 
4571 



19 

islands from Spain, for Spain had been conquered and driven out 
hy the government of Aguinaldo. We had simplj' helped to take 
the city of Manila. Therefore we took no title by conquest from 
Spain, for at the time of maldng the treaty with Spain we had not 
conquered any territory from her. 

We did not acquire title by purchase, because title by purchase 
requires delivery of possession; and as Spain was not in possession, 
she could not and did not deliver the islands to us. By what 
right, then, are we there? By no right in morals or law: by no 
right that can be defended before God or man. We are there as 
conriuerors, we are there as the armed banditti would enter your 
premises in daytime, and we have no better right to be there than 
the bandit has to enter and despoil your home. 

If our title is by conquest, then it is as yet incomplete. If our 
title is by conquest, we did not acquire it from Spain, and it is 
nearly two years since the war with Spain ceased, and yet the 
conquest is in progress. 

In (Jctober he was again asked to give up more territory. He 
was again asked to retire his troops beyond not only the city of 
Manila, but the adjoining towns. Then he called the attention of 
General Otis to the fact that the towns which Otis desired him to 
surrender were not a part of Manila— you will find it on pages 20 
and 21 of General Otis's report. General Otis said, " You are 
right; the territory which I now demand I can not find as em- 
braced in the city of Manila or its suburbs; but," he said, "that 
makes no difference; I insist upon the possession of the territory 
anyway." So our lines were pushed out constantly, creating irri- 
tation and bad feeling. 

Finally Dewey seized the ships of the Filipinos in the harbor. 
Was not that an act of war? Why talk longer about who com- 
menced the war in the Philippines, when in October we seized 
the vessels of our allies— and they were vessels of war— dismissed 
the men who manned them, took down the Filipino flag and re- 
moved it from the sea? 

On the 24th of November Otis again wrote to Aguinaldo saying 
that he must retire beyond the village of Santa Mesa, and that if 
he did not he would attack him. On the 21st of December the 
President sent a proclamation to be published in the Philippines 
telling the inhabitants that the United States had assumed sov- 
ereignty over the islands— a proclamation which was a clear 
declaration of war— a declaration that we would extend our mil- 
itary control then existing in the city of Manila throughout the 
entire area of the group. 

This proclamation was published in the Philippines on the 4th of 
January, 1899. Of what necessity, I say, Mr. President, is there 
for trying to ascertain who commenced the war, when it is demon- 
strated that we seized their ships in October, when we drove them 
beyond the territorial limits of the city of Manila, the only coun- 
try we had occiipied or had a right to occupy under the protocol 
with Spain, when we on the 4th day of February attacked their 
forces and fired the first and the second shot, and killed three 
of their people? I say of what use is it to try to contend that 
those people began the war. And after that, on the 5th daj' of 
February, the day after hostilities were inaugurated, Aguinaldo 
asked to have hostilities cease, and said that he had no notion of 
making an attack upon our people and had not done so. The 
reply was that, fighting having once commenced, it should go on 
to the grim end. 
4571 



20 

I say nnder these circumstances we are precluded from taking 
any other position than that we betrayed and attacked an ally; 
that we are now undertaking to conquer an unwilling people, and 
that the only honest and honorable coarse for us to pursue is to 
withdraw our armed forces and negotiate with the Filipinos for 
the establishment of a government. 

To-day our army occupies a few towns. Out of the 1,100 vil- 
lages in the Philippines having more than 2,000 people we occupy, 
according to the Army reports, less than one-fourth. We occupy 
to-day and hold possession simply of the territory upon which is 
planted the feet of our soldiers, and bej'ond the range of their 
guns we have no possession whatever. Those people are furnish- 
ing their own government and are piirsuing the peaceful course of 
life described by the two officers of the Navy who traveled through 
the islands in the summer of 1898. 

Tuesday, June 5, 1900, 

Mr. PETTIGREW. Mr. President, it is customary when the 
English nation wishes to conquer a weaker people to deprive them 
of their rights, their liberties, and their government, to begin a 
systematic course of slander and libel against them, to begin to 
assert that they are in every way bad and possess infamous cus- 
toms, and after public prejudice has been manufactured, England 
marches an army into the coveted territory and begins killing the 
inhabitants and conquering the country. 

Aguinaldo and his followers are a grand people. You can not 
find a line in Document No. 02, sent to us by the President, that 
does not describe the people of the Philippines as a Christian peo- 
ple, 6,000,000 out of the 7,000,000 being members of the Catholic 
church, having schools and churches in all their towns; not a line 
that does not describe Aguinaldo and his f ollovv^ers as men worthy 
to act v/ith us. 

When we decided to conquer that country our coiirse was 
changed. Then we began to imitate England and to slander the 
people; then Aguinaldo was a half-caste, without character, and 
had taken a bribe, and after that we heard rumors that he had 
issued orders, or one of his chief officers had issued orders, for the 
murder of the inhabitants of Manila, sparing no one. The Senator 
from Wisconsin [Mr. Spooner] repeated and repeated again a doc- 
ument purporting to have been signed by Sandico, a member of 
Aguinaldo"s cabinet, and he commented on it. It purports to have 
been a proclamation. It is unsigned. It was picked up in Manila. 
It was anonymous as sent to us. It never was signed by any- 
body, and yet when Otis was asked who issued it" he reported 
back that Sandico was the author. Now. 1 denv that Sandico 
ever issued it, and I assert that it is a forgerv. Yet it is brought 
in here to prove that tliese people are a bloodthirsty race, and that 
they intended to murder the inhabitants of Manila who were for- 
eign born. 

There is nothing in Aguinaldo's history or the history of his 
people since the difficulties commenced to justifv the cha^e. 
We captured the Spanish garrison in Subig Bay, 1,300 prisoners 
were surrendered to us, and Admiral Dewev turned them over to 
the iDsurgents. If they were bloody monsters and savages, would 
we have done tliat? Aguinaldo captured Iloilo when our fleet 
anchored off that city and threatened to bombard it. The English 
and the German residents sent out a delegation of citizens to ask 
us to desist, saying that life and liberty were thoroughly protected 

4571 



21 

and that there was peace within the town. General Miller re- 
ported these facts to General Otis. He said the Filipinos were 
collecting the customs, were administer;ng the government, and 
he advised an immediate attack upon Iloilo, because he said if 
they discovered they cou'd do these things they mightwant to 
continue to do them. This information can he found in Otis s 

""to offset all this; to offset the admitted facts that they treated 
their prisoners kindlv. that they did not even hill the members of 
the religious orders against whom they had their greatest griev- 
ances, but preserved their lives and cared for them— against all 
this an anonymous circular is produced and commented upon in 
order to prove that the Filipino people are savages. 

The Senator from Wisconsin commented upon this section of 
the circular: 

Second. Philippine families only will he respected; they shmild not be 
molfsted, but all other individuals, of what race they may be, will be exter- 
minated without apprisement (orj compassion, after the extermination ot 
the army of occupation. 

And so on. Now, let us go deeper into the facts touching 
upon this circular. I hold in my hand an article from Harper's 
ISlagazineof August, 1S99. entitled " Filipino insurrection of l«y6," 
written from a study of the Spanish archives left in Manila, by 
Lieut. Carlos Gilman Calkins, of the United States Navy, one of 
the officers of Dewey's flagship. He says: 

In ^uo-ust (1893) the champion of denunciation, the chief of clerical detect- 
ive; came forward. Fray Mariano Gil, of the Augustinian order, parish priest 
of ahutredomed church at Tondo. a northern suburb of Manila. A native 
was led to make avowals which enabled this friar to discover certain articles 
which might pa'^s for -'concrete proof "'in the curious legal system of the 
Latin races. One of them was a stamp used in receipting for monthly dues 
of members in a lodge of the Katipunan. Incriminating documents and lists 
were taken from the same locker in the office of the Uiario de Manila, the 




quest and conversion of the archipelago in 15t>4. 



On August 30 Blanco had to proclaim martial law throughout the Tagalo 
provinces. He was also forced, much against his wdl, to accept the services 
of volunteers, including all able-bodied Spaniards. Magistrates hurried to 
ioin their companies. Courts were closed and civil law was extinguished. 
The lives of some 2,000,000 people lay at the mercy of courts-martial-^ot 
summary courts martial, since sumarisimo is the watchword of Spanish mili- 
tary .iustice. . „ , ■ -. 

The principal document cited in justification of these extraordinary meas- 
ures is a proclamation attributed to the chiefs of the Katipunan, of which 
tlie essential clause is as follows: "When the signal H. 3 Sep. is given, each 
brother will perforin the duty imposed by this grand lodge, murdering all 
Spaniard*, their women and children, without consideration for kindred, 
friendship, or gratitude." Other savage directions follow, but they v;ere 
never carried into execution. , ,. xx i i 

The document may be, in some degree, authentic. It may have been 
drawn by some native agitator, and even adopted by some lodge of the Kaci- 
puran; but we can not accept the assertion that Kizal and other intellectual 
martvrs were responsible tor this atrocious jargon. There is a recurrent 
Iceiui that plots have been formed " to kill all Spaniards, each servant slay- 
ing his master." This was the charge against the native priests shot m lSi~, 
an'd the rumor was revived on December l.j, 1898, substituting Americans lor 
Spaniards. 

This old document, issued in 1872, to justify the butchery of the 
Filipinos, is repeated, changing the word " Spaniards '' to '-Amer- 
icans," and is issued again to prove that Aguinaldo is a savage. 

Let us see what Mr. Foreman says. On page riH'J of Do;uuient 
No. 6'2, Part II, Fifty-fifth Congress, third session, which was 
4.571 



22 

transmitted to us by the President, a statement before the Peace 
Commission at Paris, signed by John Foreman, reads as follows: 

Any governor-general who displeases the monks is recalled. In recent 
times"General Despujols had to leave in 1S93, after eight months of office, be- 
cause ho ceased to be a persona grata to the priests. A native, Dr. Rizal, had 
written and pnV)lished some facts about the monastic orders, and Despujols 
refused to have this man put to death for it. , ^ ,, . ^ . 

Then, again, he ordered a search to be made m a convent of the Austrian 
friars and there he found a printing press and seditious leaflets being printed 
for the priests, who intended, by distributing them, to attribute to the na- 
tives an attempted revolt. 

It had been the custom, Mr. President, in order to justify the 
course of the Spanish Government toward these people, to find an 
excuse for the Spanish authorities to the persecution of the Fili- 
pinos to issue these anonymous or forged circulars, in order to ex- 
cite the animosity of mankind against the Filipinos, and we are 
following this same practice. That is all there is to the Sandico 
circular. 

The other document which has been circulated and which came 
to us, anonymous as it was, purporting to have been found among 
Aguinaldo's papers, was a letter written to the commanding Span- 
ish officer at Iloilo in October urging that officer to surrender and 
,ioin the insurgent forces. Even if the document is genuine— but 
i believe it is spurious— it was written after we had seized the 
ships of war of the Filipino republic in the harbor of Manila, and 
had thns begun a conflict against them. They could regard us no 
longer as allies and friends after that act. 

Mr. President, it has been said that we were forced to take title 
to those islands from Spain because, if we had not done so, Spain 
would have reconquered them, and that we could not turn them 
over to Spain. With what grim satisfaction Spain must look upon 
our efforts to acquire a title which she could not deliver! What 
grim revenge it must be to her to view the loss of nearly 2,000 
soldiers by'us and the expenditure of the vast sums of money 
which it has cost lis, not to conquer the Philippines, but to occupy 
340 of the 1,100 towns of that country, to feel that we possess 
nothing except the territory which we actually occupy with our 
armies! How Spain must rejoice to know that not a soldier of 
ours can step anywhere in the islands outside of the protection of 
our guns without losing his life! 

What page in history gives an account of a more noble and 
determined effort to secure their independence than that written 
by the Filipinos? I say, Mr. President, that if we had not taken 
title from Spain, she could not have recovered the islands. Crip- 
pled, her fleet destroyed, bankrupt, Spain had not the power to 
reconquer the Philippines, and if we had simply left them out of 
the treaty to-day they would be free and independent; to-day they 
would be' administering the quiet and the peacef u.1 government 
which we foimd after the destruction of the Spanish fleet; to-day 
a republic would exist there founded upon our Constitution and 
oiTr Declaration of Independence. I say Spain could not have re- 
conquered the islands; that they would have been free and inde- 
pendent, and for proof of that I read from Document 63, page 369. 
- This is a hearing before the Paris peace commission. The wit- 
ness is General xMerritt, fresh from the Philippines, fresh from 
the capture of Manila. The query was put to him by Mr. Gray, 
one of the commissioners: 

Suppose by final treaty with Spain wo should abandon Luzon and all the 
PhilipiJines, exacting such terms and conditions and guaranties as we sho;ild 
think necessary, and abandon them entirely, reserving only a coaling station, 
perhaps, what do yoix think they would do about it? 
4571 



23 

General Merritt. I think in the island of Luzon they would fight to the 
bitter end. I have talked v.-ith a number of them, intelligent men. v.-ho said 
their lives were nothing to them as compared with the iTcedom of their coun- 
try and getting rid of Spanish government. 

'Mr. Davis. Do you think Spain would be able to reduce them? 

General Mf.rritt. No, sir. 

Where, then, goes all this talk about tnrnin.c: theai over to 
SpaiuV At the time General Merritt gave thut te.stimony the 
Filipinos liad captured every Spanish garrison in the island of 
Luzon; they were in po.ssession of the entire territor.y; and two 
naval officers, traveling for sixty days, give an account of the 
peaceful government they found. They testify that in one of the 
towns they entered they found Spanish merchants pursuing their 
business, unmolested and protected by the people. Day by day 
the account of their journey through those peaceful communities 
must convince any unbiased person that those people are capable 
of self-government, and were actually practicing it. Turn them 
back to Spain! That was impossible. 

I also read from Document No. 62 a statement by General Mer- 
ritt before the Paris Peace Commission. This question Vv'as a iked 
by Mr. Frye, the chairman of the commission: 

Q. Were thev of material assistance to us? 

General Meri-itt answers: 

A. Very great. If the protocol had not been signed, I think the Spanish 
at home would have insisted upon their army doing something. They dis- 
missed Augustin because he was not disposed to fight, and I think if they had 
not had this experience of having been driven back into the city and the 
water cut off. so even that .Jaudenes said he could not remove his noncom- 
batants, the Government woiild have insisted on his making a fight, and he 
could have made a very good one, for his position was strong, if they had any 
fight in them at all. But every place had been taken from them by the Fili- 
pinos, who managed their advances and occupation of the country in an able 
manner. 

General Whittier, page 500, Document 03. 

The Chairman: 

Q. How many men did he get together? 

A. His forces went around the city, taking the waterworks and the north 
part of the city, and running up the railroad. I asked that question of sev- 
eral, and the opinions differed widely— all the way from HAm to 30,000 or 40,- 
Of»D men. 

Q. Do you think ho had as many as 8.000 men before the surrender? 

A. Yes, sir; the environment ot the city took a great many men. There 
is a vast extent of country there, including the waterworks and running 
around the city, and they certainly had to have more than that to do so. 

Q. How many arms did Dewey turn over to them? 

A. I never knew exactly. I asked him that question, and he said a very 
few. 

Q. "Where did they get the rest of then- arras? . , , 

A. Some captured from the Spanish, some brought to hmi by deserters, 
and there were some shipments of arms from Hongkong— I believe Amer- 
icans brought them in— and they have lately taken some to Batangas,m the 
southern part, and have taken some new Maxim guns in there, too. 
Mr. Ghay: 

Q. To the insurgents? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Since the capitulation? , .i. r,, , i i i 

A Yes; they changed the name of a vessel and used it. She had had a 
Luzon name, the Fasig, and thev changed it to the Abbi/. Dewey sent down 
and seized the boat, and the insurgents followed to Manila Bay. hojnng to 
reclaim it. In other respects their demands, from their point of view, have 
not been unreasonable, and show a lu-oper appreciation of the status. 

The whole country had been captured by Aguinaklo and his 
people: the Spanish soldiers had baen taken prisoners, their arms 
taken from them, and those who were left had been driven into 
Manila: the tov/n had been surroanded, and yet Senators stand 
here and say, "We had to take title to those islands because we 
could not titrn them back to Spain! " France m ght as well have 
4571 



2i 

said to us after our Revolution that she would take title to the 
American colonies, because she could not turn them back to Eng- 
land. If the French had done what we did in Manila, we would 
not have waited for their forces to be augmented by new levies; 
we would not have waited for ship after ship to come across the 
sea loaded with troops, as the Filipinos did with us. If France 
had said that she asserted sovereignty over this coantry and that 
she proposed to extend her military rule over the American col- 
onies, without waiting for any more troops we would have de- 
stroyed those she had here; but the Filipinos trusted in our prom- 
ises; having fought side by side with us and having been our 
allies they still further trusted and trusted until we had increased 
our army and our navy in those waters, and then we turned our 
guns against them. 

Senator Frye seems to have understood the situation at Paris, 
for he asked Commander Bradford, of the United States Navy, 
the following question (Document G2, page 488): 
Mr. Frye: 

Q. I would like to ask just one question in that line. Suppose tlie United 
States in the progress of that war found the leader of the present Philippine 
rebellion an exile from his country in Hongkong and sent for him and 
brought him to the islands in an American ship, and then furnished him 
4,000 or 5,000 stands of arms, and allowed him to purchase as many more 
stands of arms in Hongkong, and accepted his aid in conquering Luzon, what 
kind of a nation, in the eyes of the world, we would appear to be to surrender 
Aguinaldo and his insurgents to Spain to be dealt with as they please? 

A. We become responsible for everything he has done; he is our ally, and 
we are bound to protect him. 

The day after the surrender (August 13) four representatives of Aguinaldo 
called on General Merritt, who assured them in general terms that "we are 
the friends of the Filipinos." At that time they occupied a portion of Manila. 
"We soon demanded that they should give that up, to which Aguinaldo's rep- 
resentative agreed, but in seeking confirmation from him the condition was 
made that in case we gave up the country they should be restored to the po- 
sitions then occupied "and which they had taken greatly by their own merits. 
However, matters have been amicably settled. Aguinaldo's headquarters 
are at Malolos. 23 miles up the railroad. His troops control all the settled 
part of the island (except Manila), as well as much of the southern country. 
The CnAiRMAx: 

Q. What do you mean by the " southern country "—those islands below? 

A. Yes. 

Their conduct to their Spanish prisoners has been deserving of the praise 
of all the world. With hatred of priests and Spaniards, fairly held on account 
of the conditions before narrated, and with every justification to a savage 
mind for tlio most brutal revenge, I have heard no instance of torture, mur- 
der, or brutality since we have been in the country. 

Here is what General Anderson says in the North American 
Review of February 19, 1900: 

On the 1st of July, 1893, I called on Aguinaldo with Admiral Dewey. He 
asked me at once whether "the United States of the North" either had re- 
cognized or would recognize his government— I am not quite sure as to the 
form of his question, whether it was "had" or "would." In either form it 
was embarrassing. 

Not embarrassing to us, Mr. President, if we had been honest; 
not embarrassing to us if we did not intend to deceive. Why 
was it embarrassing? It was because he had orders to use those 
people to fight the common foe. Would it have been embarrass- 
ing if he had been instructed to pursue an upright and an honor- 
able coitrse, and to say to Aguinaldo, " I have been ordered to take 
this country and annex it to the United States, and you can expect 
notlnng from us? " That was the only decent course a great and 
mighty nation like this could have adopted; but we did not do it. 
So he says: 

My orders were, in substance, to effect a landing, establish a base, not to 
go beyond the zone of naval cooperation, to consult Admiral Dewey, and to 
4571 



25 

wait for Merritt. Aguinaldo had proclaimed his government only a few 
days before (June 2.^), and Admiral Dewey bad no instructions as to that as- 
sumption. The facts as to the situation at tliat time I believe to be these- 
Consul Williams states in one of his letters to the State Department that 
several thousand Tagals were in open insurrection before our declaration of 
war with Spain. I do not know as to the number, yet I believe the statement 
has foundation in fact. Whether Admiral Dewey and Consuls Pratt, Wild- 
man, and Williams did or did not give Aguinaldo assurances that a Filipino 
government would be recognized, the Filipinos certainly thought so prob- 
ably inferring this from their acts rather than from their statements. 

Anderson says they inferred probably from their acts rather 
than from their statements. I care not" the ground npon which 
they inferred it, whether from a definite and specific ac t or from their 
statements, the fact remains that our officers knew that the Filipinos 
expected independence: 

If an incipient rebellion was already in progress, what could be inferred 
from the fact that Aguinaldo and thirteen other banished Tagals were 
brought down on a naval vessel and landed in Cavite ? Admiral Dewey gave 
them arms and ammunition, as I did subsequently, at his request. They 
were permitted to gather up a lot of arms which the Spainards had thrown 
into the bay; and, with the 4.000 rifles taken from Spanish prisoners and 
2,000 purchased in Hongkong, they proceeded to organize three brigades and 
also to arm a small steamer they had captured. I was the first to tell Ad- 
miral Dewey that there was any disposition ou the part of the American 
people to hold the Philippines if they were captured. 

Anderson, then, was the first who told Admiral Dewey. I say 
the inference is that Admiral Dewey did, as Aguinaldo says, prom- 
ise him independence. When Anderson came over he was the 
first, he says, to tell Admiral Dewey that there was a disposition 
on the part of the American people to hold the Philippines if they 
were captured. Yv'hy did they not tell the Filipinos so? Why did 
he allow them to sacrifice their lives in assaulting the city of Ma- 
nila and act with us until the city fell? Who is it that pretends 
to stand up here and say now, in the face of these facts, that the 
Filipinos began the war against iis? No; there is no example in 
the history of the world of such a spirit of forbearance as was 
manifested by these people after they discovered that we had 
turned against them. 

The current of opinion was setting that way when the first exj^editionary 
force left San Francisco, but this the Admiral had had no reason to surmise. 
But to return to our interview with Aguinaldo. I told him I was acting only 
in a military capacity; that I had no authority to recognize his government; 
that we had come to whip the Spaniards, and that, if we were successful, the 
indirect effect would be to free them from Spanish tyranny. 

Here he knew that we were going to keep the islands, and yet 
he told the Filipinos that we wanted to act in conjtmction with 
Aguinaldo and his forces to whip the Spaniards and to free them 
from Spanish tyranny; and he went there bearing the information 
to Dewey that we proposed to keep the islands. 

I say, Mr. President, that if any people in America to-day are 
contending for the honor of the American flag it is the people 
who protest against the course pursued against these people in 
the Orient. If any people in America to day are slandering the 
flag and covering it witli shame and smearing it Vi^ith dishonor, 
it is this Administration and the Senators on this floor who de- 
fend its course. 

I added that as we were fighting a common enemy I hoped we would get 
along amicably together. He did not seem pleased with this answer. 

I do not wonder. At this time he had conquered the whole of 
Luzon and several other islands to the south, had driven Spain 
into Manila, and drawn a line of earthworks from ocean to ccean, 
clear around that city. He had acted with us; he had been 
brought from Singapore because he was considered fit to be our 
4571 



r 



2^ 

ally, and because he was considered a most capable man to assist 
us in crushing out Spanish power. 

He did not seem pleased with this answer. The fact is, he hoped and 
expected to take Manila with Admiral Dewey's assistance. 

He had a right to so hope. Admiral Dewey said he could take 
Manila at any time, and therefore there was no necessity lor our 
sending a single soldier to Manila. These men who were good 
enough for its to tttrn our prisoners over to at Stibig Bay, who 
were good enough to act with our fleet in taldng the city, and 
after we had taken it and after we had acted with them and com- 
pelled a surrender, we would never have lost the life of a soldier 
in the Philippines, not one, for we need not have sent a soldier 
there; and yet we have treated them in this shameful manner. 
Dewey telegraphed before a soldier had arrived that he could take 
Manila any day, and that telegrain is in his official report. Why 
did he not do it? Why did he invite those people to come and as- 
sist us and promise them independence? He had advised with 
them in regard to drawing up a constitution and establishing a 
civil government. Now, I ask, why did they not take Manila and 
save all this bloodshed, and save, above all, the honor of our flag 
and the honor of our country and build a republic there? 

"Oh,"' Senators say, "the Filipinos would have sacked Ma- 
nila." There is no proof of it. They took possession of cities of 
40,000 people; they took possession of cities of 20,000 people; they 
took possession of cities of 10,000 people; and there is not an in- 
stance where there was any massacre of the inhabitants or the 
destruction of any property. Read again the report of Sargent 
and Wilcox, two naval officers who traveled through that island, 
and you will find that they stated there was peace and protection 
such as has not existed where our occupation has gone. 

And he was bitterly disappointed when our soldiers landed at Cavite. In 
a few hours after onr interview two of my staff officers, Major Cloman and 
Lieutenant Clark, who were walking through the streets of the town, were 
arrested and taken before Aguinaldo. They were told by him that strangers 
could only visit the town by his permission, but that in their case he was 
pleased to give them permission to proceed. We at once landed our forces, 
and on the -Ith of July Aguinaldo was invited to witness a parade and review 
in honor of our national holiday. He did not come, because he was invited 
not as President but as General Aguinaldo. 

Dewey says that he never saluted or treated Aguinaldo with 
military honors. The proof is conclusive that he did. He was 
invited as " General Aguinaldo." 

This led me to write him a letter stating that while we hoped to have ami- 
cable relations with him, I would have to take Cavite as a base of operations, 
and closing with this sentence: 

"I have thei-efore to ask yoiir excellency to instruct your officials not to 
interfere with my officers in the performance of their duties and not to as- 
sume that officers or men can not visit Cavite without your permission." 

A fev/ days thereafter he made an official call, coming with cabinet and 
staff and a band of music. On that occasion he handed me an elaborate 
schedule for an autonomous government which he had received from some 
B'ilipincs in Manila, with a statement that they had reason to believe that 
Spain would grant them such a form of government. With this was an open 
letter addressed to the Filipino people from Pedro Alexandre Paterno ad- 
vising them to put their trust in Spain rather than America. Tlie day be- 
fore two Gf erman officers had called on Aguinaldo, and I believed they had 
brought him those papers. I asked him if the scheme was agreeable to him. 
He did not answer, but a.sked if we, the North Americans, as he called us, in- 
tended to hold the Philippines as dependencies. I said I could not answer 
that, but that in one hundred and twenty years we had established no 
colonies. 

Anderson says, "I could not answer that." I have just read 
where he says to Admiral Dewey— and he was the first one to 
advise Admiral Dewey that we proposed to keep the islands — that 

4571 



27 

he could not answer it. What were Ins instructions? To lie to 
the Filipinos? Did he go over there with instructions to deceive 
and falsify? Of course if he did he could not answer, because as 
an officer of the Army he must obey his instructions. He says, 
" I could not answer that," and yet he knew it, because he says he 
was the one who bore the intelligence to Dewey. 

I said I conld not answer that, but that in ono hundred and twenty years 
we had established no colonies. He then made this remarkable statemeut^- 

That is, Aguinaldo — 

"I have studied attentively the Constitution of the United States, and I find 
in it no authority for colonies and I have no fear." 

He understood the Constitution better than some of the mem- 
bers of this Senate and a good deal better than the Administra- 
tion. ' ' He had studied our Constitution attentively. " If the Presi- 
dent would do that he would not be undertaking, in violation of 
that Constitution, to conquer a people and to govern them by 
despotic liower against their will. 

The prevailing sentiment of the Filipinos toward us can be shown by ono 
incident. 

About the middle of July the insurgent leaders in Cavite invited a number 
of our Army and Navy officers to a banquet. Thei-e was some postprandial 
speech making, the substance of the Filipino talk being that they wished to 
be annexed but not conquered. One of our officers in reply assured them 
that we had come, not to make them slaves, but to make them free men. A 
singular scene followed. All the Filipinos rose to their feet and Kuencomeno, 
taking his wineglass in his hand said: "We wish to be baptized in that sen- 
timent." Thenheaud the rest poured the wine from their glassesover their 
heads. 

Statements have been made to the effect that Manila was taken by agree- 
ment— 

And then General Anderson goes into that question. I will 
read the portion with regard to the taking of Manila by agree- 
ment, and I will leave the people of this country to judge whetlier 
it was not taken by agreement, and whether every life that v/as 
lost in the taking of Manila was not sacrificed to Spanish pride. 
The Dakota boys were murdered in that assault, an assault abso- 
lutely tmnecessary. It v/as made because they were afraid that, 
if we did not pursue the course we pursued, the Filipinos would 
get into Manila: 

The negotiations by which it was attempted to secure a surrender withoiit 
resistance were carried on through Mr. Andre, the Belgian consul. His 
method was to go to the Governor-General and get a statement, whicli he 
wrote down in a memoradum book; tueu he would go to General Merritt and 
Admiral Dewey and get a statement from them, which ho would carry back 
to the Governor-General. This was apart from some formal correspondence. 
After the surrender, Andre translated to me the notes in his memorandum 
book, for they were written in Spanish. The substance of tho agreement 
seemed to be that if the fleet did not throw shells into tho walled city or the 
Spanish part of Manila the Spanish artillery would not open on tho fleet. 

We could shoot at the part of the city occupied by the native 
Filipinos ail we pleased, kill as many of them as we had a mind 
to, if we would not shoot at the Spaniards, Whom were we 
fighting? Spain. Whom had our boys enlisted to fight? Spain. 
And j-et the agreement was that we were not to shoot at the 
Spanish part of the city, where the Spanish garrison was, and then 
they would not fire back at us! 

There was no agreement, as the memorandum was read to me, that our 
land forces would not bo flred on. 

Dewey said he could take the city at any time with his fleet 
alone. 

On the contrarv, there was a statement that tho honor of Spain required 
that there should'be resistance, and that under the Spanish army code their 
4571 



28 

cfRcerti Eurrenderinsr witbont resistance or giving a parole would snoject 
thom.selves to tiiiil by court-martial. Accordinglv, we were fired on from 
the trenches and back through the streets of the city. 

We could take the city with the fleet without losing a man, and 
yet our boys— boys from Dakota, boys Irom the West— were 
inarched up and sacrificed and shot down to gratify Spanish prido; 
so that these Spanish officers would not be court-martialed after 
we paro'ed them. That is the statement of General Anderson. 
It is but a chapter in this wretched business. 

Then lie goes on to the subject of controversy. I propose to re- 
late just briehy right here how Manila was takcTi. The city was 
surrounded with earthworks and an army of Filipinos Irom shore 
to shore. We landed on the western side of the city upon the 
shore, having previously secured from the Filipinos permission to 
occupy a quarter of a mile of their trenches. Aguinaldo asked 
that this permission be requested in writing, so that his authority 
and rights Avou'd be on record. Our officers promised to put it in 
writing. Depending upon their honor, Aguinaldo surrendered 
his trenches — a quarter of a mile of them— to our forces, and they 
occupied them. 

I should like to ask whether that written request was ever sent. 
It does not appear in the documents sent to us. It does not ap- 
pear in any record sent to us. Undoubtedly it never was sent. 
It was another piece of treachery practiced by our army over 
there. When I make this charge of treachery I draw it as an in- 
ference from the facts I state, and if it is not a just inference then 
people have a right to differ with me. 

We landed our army on the strip of coast. Intrenchments 
running back from the sea, 14 miles around, were occupied by 
Filipino troops and then we ordered the assault — I mean this play 
at an assault. We started our forces down along the b?ach to the 
corner of the walled city. The wall was covered v/itli armed 
Si)aniards. Wlien we got down there they did not fire upon our 
troops. We were in between the Spanish troops who had occu- 
pied Paco, a suburb of Manila, and Aguinaldo had driven them 
out, a thousand of them, and they had started for the walled city 
and they met our troops. We did not stop them. We had no 
fight with them. They were allowed to go into the walled city. 
General Anderson got notice that representatives of our com- 
manding officers were inside the city receiving the surrender. 
Then he says he rushed his troops up a''-ong the wall to take pos- 
sessio'.i of the bridges, so as not to let the Filipinos get into the 
Spanish city and injure and harm those poor Spaniards whom we 
supposed we were fighting. 

Bat Aguinaldo assaulted all along the line, 13^ miles. Do you 
think he would have given us possession of his earthworks but 
for the fact that he expected to work with us? He lost many men. 
He took of the city of Manila more than we did. Outside of the 
wall is the principal part of the city, and he took those parts of 
the suburbs. He took them at the cost of lives. He took them at 
the loss of many of his men. When he came to the walled city, 
he found not the Spaniards resisting his course, but the bayonets 
of the troops of the United Slates. He found his ally turned 
against him. From that daj' on our course was one of constant 
aggression, constant irritation, constant attack upon him. Seven 
or eight officers of his army were killed by our sentinels. We 
pushed our sentinels out beyond the boundaries of Manila, out 
beyond the boundaries of the country we had a right to occupy. 

4571 



29 

Late in the fall Aguinaldo objected. He said: "I occupy Pan- 
dancan and Santa Mesa, and General Merritt has admitted that 
they are not within the boundary of Manila." Otis replied, " Yon 
are right. I have also examined the maps of Manila, and these 
places are not within the boundary. I can find no Spanish decree 
that places them within the boundary of Manila, l)ut I am going 
to take them anyhow." That was the substance of his statement. 

Aguinaldo's letter had recited what towns were not and wliat 
towns were within the boundary of Manila. The protocol stated 
that we were to keep possession of the city, bay, and harbor of 
Manila. Otis replied to Aguinaldo that the protocol said that we 
must keep possession of the city, suburbs, and defenses of Manila, 
and that because of that provision in the protocol wo were obliged 
to compel him to move back. 

Now, Mr. Otis stated what was absolutely false, and he dis- 
credits himself again. I should like to have any Senator read the 
protocol and then read Mr. Otiss report, on pages 20 and 21. He 
lied as to the area of country that we had a right to occupy. He 
did it purposely, and then he had to admit that even on that state- 
ment he was not entitled to the occupation of Pandancan and 
Santa Mesa. He did occupy them. He was at Santa Mesa, more 
than a mile beyond the boundary where we had a right to be under 
the protocol, violating the protocol with Spain by occupying ter- 
ritory beyond the boundaries agreed upon. 

TERMS OF PROTOCOLi OF AUGUST 13, 189S. 

Art. 3. The United States -will occupy and hold the city, bay, aurj harhor 
of Manila ponding the conclusion of a treaty of peace, which shall determino 
the control, disposition, and government of the Philippines. 

The fighting commenced, and we commenced the fighting. 
Now, let us see what Anderson says about that: 

The origin of our controversies and conflicts with the Filipinos ran, a.q 
already explained, be traced back to onr refusal to recogni:^e the political 
authority of Aguinaldo. Our first serious break with them arose from our 
refusal to let them cooperate with us. 

We sent for him, brought him from Singapore on our vessel, 
and had given him arms, anxious to have him cooperate with us. 

About o'clock on the evening of August 13 I received from General IMor- 
ritb an order to notify Aguinaldo to forbid the Filipino insurgents under his 
command from entering Manila. This notification was delivered to him at 
20 minutes uast JO that night. The Filipinos had made every proparation to 
assail the Spanish lines in their front. Certainly they would not liave givcu 
up part of their line to us unless they thought they wore to fight with us. 

We had got possession, we were in their trenches, pretty close 
to the wall of the old or Spanish town, and we got possession l)y 
lying to them, because Anderson refused to answer, and saiil he 
could not answer; and then also said that he was the bearer of tlie 
news to Dewey that wo were going to conquer and keep that 
countrj'. 

Thev therefore received General Merritt's interdict with anger .and indig- 
nation' They considered the war as their war, and Manila as their capital, 
and Luzon as their country. 

That is what our forefathers thought as to this country. 

Knowing that they would disregard any remonstrance on our part. I sent 
a battalion of North Dakota Volunteers to hold a bridge they would havo 
to cross if thoy followed us into Manila when we made our assault on the 



possepsion of Paco and part of Jlalata, two important suijurus on tiie soutu 
of the Pasig. To hold them VN-ithin these limits and stop any attempt at loot- 
ing, a cordon of troops was thrown around them. 
4571 



30 

It has been said that a letter has been discovered in Avhich Agui- 
naldo claimed a part of the share of the spoils of war, and there- 
fore that has been claimed as justification for the statement that 
he -was going- to loot Manila. What he claimed his share of was 
what hasheretof ore always been consideredlegitimate spoils of war. 
That was the §900,000 of public money which was captured when 
the city fell. That ho would not have looted, that he would not 
have burned and destroyed, is proved conclusively by the fact that 
nearly the entire population of the city of Manila were of his race 
and tribe, and fully half of his army wei"e recruited in that city, 
and their families were living there. They were not permitted 
even to go in to see their families. 

The situation was excseuingly critical. Our soldiers believed that the 
Filipinos had fired on them, and the Filipinos were almost beside themselves 
with rage and disappointment. The friendly relations we had with Generals 
Eecati and Morial alone prevented a conflict then and there. At 7 o'clock I 
received an order from General Merritt to remove the Filipinos from the 
city. Had we attempted to nso force we would have had to fight to carry 
out our orders. In that event we would certainly liave had a serious com- 
plication. 

The Filipinos would have been jur,tified in fighting right there, 
before our arinj' was increased. Tliey iiad been shown that we 
proposed to concxuer their country, and still they forebore. 

With 10,000 men we would have had to guard 13,300 Spanish prisoners and 
to fight U,000 Filipinos. I therefore took the responsibility of telegraphing 
Aguinaldo, who was at Bacnor, 10 miles below, requesting him to withdraw 
his troops, and intimating that serious consequences would follow if he did 
. not do so. I received his answer at 11, saying that a commission would como 
to me the next morning, with full powers. Accordingly the next day Sefiors 
Buencomeno, Lagardo, Araueto, and Sandeco came to division headquarters in 
Manila and stated that they were authorized to order the withdrawal of their 
troops if wc would promise to reinstate them in their present positions on 
our making peace with Spain. 

If that was not a reasonable re(|ue.^t I should like to know how 
one could be made. 

Thereupon I took them over to General Merritt. Upon their repeating 
their demands, ho told them he could not give such a pledge, but that they 
could rely on the honor of the American people. The general then read to 
them the proclamation he intended to issue to the Filipino people. Thecom- 
missirn then v^'ent back to Aguinaldo for further instructions. A member of 
the commission had brought me a letter from Aguinaldo, complaining that 
lie had been harshly treated, and that his army had given up a part of their 
lines to us on the understanding that there was to be a coo])eration between 
lis in future military movements. I showed this letter to General Merritt 
after the commission had withtlrawn. Ho directed me to reply that if 
Aguinaldo had been apparently har.shly treated, it was from a military neces- 
sity, and that while we might recognize the .justice of their insurrection, it 
was thought judicious to have only one army in Manila at one time. 

On the 15th the commission returned with a paper containing ten unrea- 
sonable demands. There was an astonishing change, from one very reason- 
able condition one day to ten aggressive demands the next. 

Their one reasonable demand had been denied. 

The change can only be accounted for on the theory that Aguinaldo jind 
his counsslors plainly perceived from General Merritfs proclamation that 
we intended to hold the Philippines under military rule. Upon this they de- 
termined to obtain the best conditions for themselves at once. There was 
sabsequently ample confirmation of this, from the fact that General Otis 
suppressed that part of the President's letter (December ~'4, 1898) to the Sec- 
retary of War which directed our military forces to take possession of all 
the Philippine Islands by right of transfer from Spain and by right of con- 
quest. 

This, mark you, is Anderson's statement, the man who took 

Manila, who was in co:iimand of our forces. He said that Otis 

struck out of the Fresidenfs proclamation to the people those 

words because he thought they would create trouble, claiming the 

4571 



i 



right to the island by transfer and by right of conquest. What 
had we conquered? The city of Manila had been surrendered to 
us upon an agreement. We had not conquered another foot of 
the territory of the island. All the rest of the island had been 
conquered by the insurgents, and the Spanish power absolutely 
destroyed; and yet he claimed the islands by conquest. We have 
been trying since to enforce our title. But it is said that the title 
came more from God than from Spain. If that is true, it is ex- 
pensive business clearing up the abstract. 

Thei-e is a great diversity of opinion as to whether a conflict with the Fili- 
pinos could not have been avoided if a more conciliatory course had been fol- 
lowed in dealing with them. I believe we came to a parting of the wavs 
w;hen we refused their request to leave their military force in a good strate- 
gic position on the contingency of our making peace with Spain without a 
guarantee of their independence. From what was known of the situation, 
our Grovernment was .iustifled in not recognizing Aguinaldo's authoritv as a 
de tacto goveTnment. For, even if it had been determined to recognize an 
independent Filipino government, it did not follow that we should recognize 
a self-appointed j unta as constituting a government. 

I beg leave to quarrel with that statement of General Ander- 
son's, and I have a right to do it, because we brought Aguinaldo 
from Singapore on our vessel, and,advising with Admiral Dewey, 
he formed a government, the government which we helped to set 
up. Therefore it was the very government we were bound to 
recognize, the very element we ought to recognize to-day. 

On the other hand, the dicta of international law that, in war, the powers 
of the military occupant are absolute and supreme, and immediately operate 
upon the political conditions of the inhabitants—which the President made 
the basis of his instructions to General Merritt— could only bo made to apply 
to the Philippines by a very liberal construction. 

Let us see what Anderson goes on to say: 

Was Luzon a conquered country? We held Manila and Cavite. The rest 
of the island was hold not by the Spaniards, but by the Filipinos. On the 
other islands the Spaniards were confined to two or 'three fortified towns. 

"The rest of the island," mark you, every acre of it, was in the 
hands, according to General Anderson, of the Filipinos; cities and 
towns, with populations of twenty and twenty-five thousand, all 
in the hands of the Filipinos, not of the Spaniards. 

On the other islands the Spaniards were confined to two or three fortified 
towns. 

On all the other islands in the group the Spanish power was 
destroj-ed. Iloilo Avas one of those other towns, on the island of 
Panay, with a population of 40,000 people, and before the treaty 
with Spain was consummated the Filipinos were in possession of 
that city administering its government. 

At the time referred to we could not claim to hold by purchase, for we had 
not then received Spain's quitclaim deed to the archipelago. Making allow- 
ance for difference of time, we took Manila almost to the hour when the peace 
preliminaries were signed in Washington. But, no matter when Manila was 
taken, it was unfortunate for us that wo felt so bound by the meshes of dip- 
lomatic amenities as to permit Spain's insurgent sub.iects to levy war against 
us and attack us when they felt fully prepared— a philanthropic policy which 
has cost us many valuable lives. 

To return to the quebtion of conciliation, one of Aguinaldo's commission, 
who was subsequently a member of his cabinet, said tome: ''Either we have 
a d© facto government or we have not. If we have, why not recognize the 
fact? If not, why have you recognized us at all? " 

Pretty good logic; pretty hard to meet. All the sophistry of 
the Senator from Wisconsin never touched this case. I wondered 
when I heard it why he admired Otis until I read Otiss reply to a 
dispatch of a few days ago asking him if Aguinaldo had not sent 
a request, after the fighting commenced on the 4th of February, 
to cease the conflict, Otis went all around that, but did not deny 

4571 



32 

it, and so the Senator from Wisconsin did in his entire speech. 
His admiration for Otis must have resulted from the excellent 
example of how to get around the facts which Otis had furnished 
him. 

This last remark referred to General Merritfs conceding them the control 
of the Manila waterworks and to General Otis"s attempts to negotiate with 
them without committing himself. 

Tliere were other canses of antagonism. Our soldiers, to get what they 
coniiderod trophies, did a good deal of -what the Filipinos considered looting. 
A nuuibra- made debts which they did not find it convenient to pay. They 
called the natives "niggers," and often treated them with a good-natiircd con- 
descension, which exasperated the natives all the more because they dared 
not resent it. 

So this is the report of General Anderson with regard to the 
capture of Manila and the situation over there, which must con- 
demn before the civilized world forever the conduct of this Ad- 
ministration as the blackest and most infamous that ever was 
placed upon the pages of historj'. 

I am going to read, although I think it is not in the consecutive 

order of my remarks, from page 434 of Document G2: 

Memoranda concerning the situation in the Philippines on August 30, 1898, 
by General Green. 

General Green was over there. This was made to the Paris 
peace commission for the purpose of furnishuig our commissioners 
with information. 

Green says: 

The United States Government, through its naval commander, has to some 
extent made use of them for a distinct military purpose, viz, to harass and 
annoy the Spanish troops, to wear them out in the trenches, to blockade Ma- 
nila on the land side, and to do as much damage as po.ssible to the Spanish 
Government prior to the arrival of our troops; and for this purpose the Ad- 
miral allowed them to take arms and munitions which he had captured at 
Cavite, and their .ships to pass in and out of Manila Bay in their expeditions 
against other provinces. 

AVebster says an ally is "anything associated with another as 
a helper, an auxiliary;" and the Century Dictionary says an ally 
is "'an auxiliary, a friend." If the}' were not allies, and If the 
record does not stamp the statement of Dewey that he never made 
allies of them as untrue, then I am unable to understand the 
English language. 

I am now going to read an account of the first fight. This is 
by a Colorado soldier, Mr. Abram L. Mumper: 

The Filipinos who did enter the city August 13, 1898, were ordered out a 
month later. They obeyed the order, but formed upon the luneta and 
marched past and saluted the spot where these patriots died. As that bare- 
foot army of men and boys marched past our barracks one of their bands, 
to show good will toward us, struck up A Hot Time in the Old Town, our 
national air for the Philippines, made such by the Colorado band playing 
it as they entered the city August l-?— an air every Filipino boy in Manila 
could whistle a week after we were in the city. We gave them a rousing 
cheer. They answered, "Vive los Americanos"." No, they did not want to 
fight us. We did not want to fight them, and if we had to fight it was because 
the master magician in this drama, behind the screens, by some trick of the 
black art, brought us together. 

You have heard much of Filipino taunts .and insults. But we T7ere the 
aggressors. We fii-st turned the cold shoulder the 13th of August. Then 
followed in a succession, made more aggravating by the time that intervened, 
the order to evacuate Malate and Paco; the order for insurgents to quit 
Singelong and Paiidacan. Dewey seized their boats upon the bay; then Gen- 
eral Otis sends a map to Aguinaldo and notifies him to remove his forces be- 
yond a line ho marked. Disputes along the outposts are settled invariably 
against the natives. Each time we soldiers are ordered under arms ready 
to lieThtif they failed to yield, and judging from the talk you might have con- 
cludi.'d that fight was preferi-ed. But each time they yielded. Aguinaldo 
counseled peace. He trusted to the Peace Commission, and finally the Sen- 
ate, to recognize his claims. He knevr he would sacrifice everything by pur- 
suing the other course. 
4571 



33 

The order of the President establishing sovereignty over the islands sn-eatw 
excited the natives. Hundreds quit thelT stands." Cat rinetto d rh e\^, -tsse? 
Jn wf ^ ""'■ ^- "n^ ^T Agninaldo-s army, and it became next o imp Sle 
Proi ?.^ carrmietto. So we soldiers had to walk. I was in town the < ay t e 
President s proclamation was posted. I heard Filipinos who had tnu=ted s 
ta now say we were "No more amigo."' I saw this proclamation, whi^ you 
will remember says so much of the rights of property, torn down by the Fi^^ 
pinos and another put up by them that dealt more with the right.s of ma 
^nfrv.hS'^^'^'TY^'-^^""''' Filipino captain was shot down by an Amo rk^i i 
sentry at the Tondp bridge. I never heard of any cause. It was already the 
f^Z'^VB "y eighth insurgent shot down in passing our lines. The cmmnand 
Halt given in English was often misunderstood, and though most of our 
soldiers were humane, there were a few that would as soon kill as eat and 
were thirs^tiug for their man. The press encouraged this reckless work by 
making a hero of the man that did the killing. Back of the pre.^s. iudging 
frem the full-page advertising, stood the beer kings, and upon the ocean were 
ships loaded with their beer. Trade was following the flag, and the llag must 
be ad\-anced to make more room for trade. lu the very ashes of the cities we 

Mr. BEVE RIDGE. What cities does he say we burned? 

Mr. PETTIGREW. He does not give the names. We burned, 
according to the stories, some of the cities. I have talked with 
soldiers about it. This man does not give the names of the cities. 
As a matter of fact, 1 talked with several of the South Dakota 
boj's, and they said the soldiers themselves set cities on fire; tliat 
when fighting first commenced the intention was to make the 
situation so unbearable and so intolerable that the Filipinos would 
yield, and we did the burning as a part of that policy. That is 
the testimony of the soldiers with whom I have conversed. But 
afterwards when it was found that our inhumane policy was not 
bringing the desired results the order was changed. 'The men 
were furnished with matches with which to perform their incen- 
diary tasks under the original plan of warfare. 

When this captain was killed the insurgent newspapers called for war. 
Tne Filipino women of Cavite held a mass meeting and begged to be allowed 
to serve upon the firing line. Aguinaldo again quiets the rising storm. But 
the armies are approaching a clash. Both forces are becoming impatient 
under restraint. But a spark is needed. The authors of the drama look on, 
no doubt, in pious grandeur and say, "It is well." 

The Nebraska regimenhad b eeii sent out to Santa Mesa. Aguinaldo had 
vigorously protested against this and pointed out to General Otis that Santa 
Mesa was outside the line of the protocol. General Otislo:)ks it up and admits 
to Aguinaldo that such is the case (pages 30 and 21, General Otiss rejxirt ), but 
holds fast to the position. Here, outside the limits of the protucol, in an effort 
to make the insurgents move back a sentry post, f he first sh.it was fired. 
Grayson, the man "''^^ tired that shot, told nie, on board the Hinirnck, as his 
regiment was reau^ sail for America, that it was "the damn bulllieaded- 
ness of the officers in invading insurgent territory " that was rosponsihlo for 
that shot. But we fired the second shot and third .shot befoi-e we got a re- 
sponse. And this was two days before the Senate was to vote upon the peace 
treaty, and many of the insurgent officers away from the firing line! This 
is the way the insurgents made what the President calls a "foul attack" 
upon us. But the Filipinos returned the fire and the war was ou. 

The fact of the matter is that General Otis's report says that 
the insurgents were not ready. They did not intend that war 
should commence then. He says the battle was one continuous 
attack on our part and simple defense on theirs. It was aggres- 
sion on our part. Furthermore, it is well proved that tiring did 
not commence all a^ong the line. Several minutes elapsed be- 
tween the killing of the first and the killing of the second Filipino. 
It took an hour and a half for the firing to reach the length of our 
line, showing that they were not ready and did not intend to fight. 
Aguinaldo says they did not intend to fight. His ofticers were 
in the city. They had been given a holiday. I will not read his 
statement of this fact, but I will read the words Otis used: 

The battle of Manila, which commenced at half past 8 o'clock on the 
45T1-3 



34 

eTening of Febimary 4, contiinied iintil 5 the next evening. * * * The en- 
gagement Vv'sis one strictly defensive on the part of the insurgents and of 
vigorous attack by our forces. 

I supplement that M'ith the statement which I made orally, 
which is copied from the Record. 

PROTOCOLi OF AGREEMENT, AUGUST 12, 1898. 

Art. 3. The United States will occupy and hold the city, bay. and harbor 
of Manila, pending the conclusion of a treaty of peace, which shall determine 
the control, disposition, and government of the Philippines. 

Now, Mr. President, the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. Spooner] 
complained that we raise,d the issue of imperialism and he objects 
that it shall be raised at this time. He says it is a political issue; 
that we have trumped it up and have undertaken to charge it 
against the Administration for political purposes. Mr. Presi- 
dent, we did not raise the issue of imperialism. Who rai.sed the 
issue of imperialism? The men who in sending our flag to Porto 
Rico refused to ^end our Constitution there. Who raised it before 
that? Every acquisition of territory that we have ever made up 
to the time we took Hawaii and the Philipi^ines has contained a 
provision that the ceded territory should be incorporated into the 
Union of States and its inhabitants made to share with us the 
duties of a republic. 

Mr. HANSBROUGH. Mr. President 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Allen in the chair). Does 
the Senator from South Dakota yield to the Senator from North 
Dakota? 

Mr. PETTIGREW. I yield to the Senator. 

Mr. HANSBROUGH. The Senator should except Alaska in 
that statement. 

Mr. PETTIGREW. I will read the provision, with regard to 
Alaska. After we had adopted the Spanish treaty we first voted 
down the Bacon resolution and then we voted this resolution: 

Resolved, etc.. That by the ratification of the treaty of peace with Spain it is 
not intended to incorporate the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands into 
citizenship of the United States, nor is it intended to permanently annex tlie 
said islands as an integral part of the territory of the United States. 

There is your doctrine of imperialism. By it we propose to hold 
a people against their will as a colony of this Republic — a oneman 
power, absolute despotism government under the resolution. After 
bringing in that resolution the Senator from Wisconsin complains 
that we raise the issue of imperialism. You raised it when you 
said we will take and hold that country without promising to its 
people citizenship or ever making it an integral part of the terri- 
tory of the United States. 

Now, let us see. When we annexed Alaska the treaty contained 
the following provision: 

The inha]>itants of the ceded territory, according to tlieir choice, reservl 
ing their national allegiance, may return to Russia within three years, bnt 
if they should prefer to remain in the ceded territory they, with the excep- 
tion of vincivilized native tribes, shall be admitted to the enjoyment of all the 
lights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States, and shall 
be maintained and protected in the freeenjoyment of their liberty, property, 
and religion. 

What are the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of 
the United States? Why, participation to the fullest extent in 
our Government and as understood and practiced in all our Ter- 
ritories admission as States. But the Philipi^ines were not to 
have that. They were never to become citizens of the United 
States. It is not intended to incorporate the inhabitants of the 
4571 



35 



Phili]-)piRe Islands into citizenship of the United States. Fo the 
Senator is answered with regard to Russia and Alaska. 

Now v/ith regai'd to Louisiana: 

That the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in tr.o 
L nion of the United f^tatos. and admitted as soon as possible, accordin"- to the 
principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of ail the rishts 
advantages, and immunities of the citizens of the United States— ' 

"Rights, advantages, and immunities!" The same words ex- 
actly are used in the treaty with Russia with regard to Alaska— 
and in the meantime they shall be maintained and protected in the free en- 
joyment of their liberty, property, and the religion which they profess. 

Words absolutely the same except the promise that they should 
be admitted into the Union of the United States. They are super- 
fluous words if used in connection with the pledge, with the con- 
tract that they shall enjoy all the rights, privileges, and immuni- 
ties of citizens of the United States. 

In the treaty when we purchased Florida there is the present 
provision: 

The inhabitants in the territories which His Catholic Majestv cedes to the 
United St;ites by tliis treaty shall be incorporated in the 'Cnion of the 
United States as soon as may be consistent with the principles of the Federal 
Constitution, and admitted to the enjoyment of all privileges, rights, and im- 
munities of citizens of the United States. 

In the treaty with Mexico, the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 
Article VIII is as follov.'s: 

Mexicans now established in territories previously belonging to Mexico, 
and which remain for the future within the limits of the United States, de- 
fined by the present, shall be free to continue where they now re.<i le. or to 
remove at any time to the Mexican Republic, retaining tiie ])roperty which 
they jjossess in the said territories, or disposing thereof, and removing the 
proceeds wherever they please, without their being subjected, on this ac- 
count, to any contribution, tax, or charge whatever. 

Then the treaty goes on to sa)': 

The Mexicans who, in the territories aforesaid, shall not pre.oerve the 
character of citizens of the Mexican Reiiublic, conformably witli wliat is stip- 
ulated in the preceding article, shall be incorporated into the Cniun of the 
United States, and be admitted at the proper time (to be judged Ijy the Con- 
gress of the United States) to the enjoyment of all the rights of citizens of 
the United States, according to the principles of the Constitution: and in the 
meantime shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their 
liberty and property, and secured in the free exercise of their religion with- 
out restriction. 

Then in the Gadsden treaty, where we purchased from Mexico 

a large portion of territory, there is this provision: 

That all the provisions of the two articles of the Guadalupe Hidalgo 

treaty- 
Just quoted — 

and that the same articles should also apply to all the rights of persons and 

property, both civil and ecclesiastical, within the same. 

So I fail to find a single instance where we did not provide that 
they should be citizens of the United States. Who then, I say, 
raises the issue of imperialism? Why, it is those who voted for 
the resolution declaring that those people should never be citizens 
of the United States, and that their country should never be an 
integral part of our Government; in other words, that they should 
never be admitted into the Union of States. 

Who is apologizing, Mr. President, for the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence and the Constitution of the United States? Who is it 
that has suddenly discovered that the theories of government con- 
4571 



36 

tainecl in these great instruments are inapplicable to human af- 
fairs? Why. the Senator from Wisconsin and those who agree 
with him. The rest of us can read the Declaration of Independ- 
ence on the Fourth of Juljs and we can hope that other people 
will throw off the yoke of despotism and tyranny and adopt our 
Constitution as a model of free government. But the imjierialists, 
those who are apologizing for the Declaration, those who think 
Ave have outgrown the Constitution, of course can no longer hope 
that people anywhere in the world shall adopt our form of gov- 
ernment as a model. We who disagree v^'ith this infernal impe- 
rial policy can vote for a resolution of sympathy with the strug- 
gling Republics of Africa, but the imperialists in this body can 
not. Such a change in their heart, such a change in their meth- 
ods of'thought, was never before heard of, outside of a miracle, 
in the history of the world. 

Last Fourth of July Administrationists began to drift from their 
moorings, and could no longer celebrate that glorious day without 
apologizing for the document which it commemorates; but three 
years ago, after the campaign of 1896, when the great money 
power took control of this country and of its affairs, they could 
have read the Declaration and loved and praised it and wished 
that others would follow it as well as we can to-day. What they 
will do next Fourth of July I know not, but I am sure they can 
not read that Declaration with any heart or pleasure: and after 
they have done it, they must apologize to the listening crowds for 
their interpretation of it. 

Who is it that is apologizing for Lincoln and asserting upon 
this floor that he fought the war of the rebellion to overthrow the 
fundamental position around which was woven his entire polit- 
ical life? Who is it that undertakes to say that the war of the re- 
bellion was waged on his part to destroy the doctrine that all 
governments derive their just powers from the consent of the 
governed? I say not those of us who are opposed to imperialism 
and aggression and robbery and wrong; but it is the Senator 
from Wisconsin, it is the imperialists of this body, who find it 
necessary to blacken the character of Abraham Lincoln. Let us 
see what Abraham Lincoln said about this, Lincoln said: 

The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they 
have conferred none upon him to fix the term for the separation of the States. 
The people themselves can do this also if they choose, but the Executive, as 
such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present Gov- 
ernment as it came to his hands and to transmit it, unimpaired by him. to 
his successor. By the frame of the Government under which we live this 
same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mis- 
chief, and have with equal wisdom provided for the return of that little to 
their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their vir- 
tue and vigilance no Administration, by any e.xtreme wickedness or folly, 
can very seriously injure the Government in the short space of four years. 

Here, then. Lincoln refutes the slander placed upon him. He 
says that this Government and the relation of the States and how 
they might be separated was only for the people to determine — the 
whole people — for the States to determine bj' anundei'standingor 
an agreement; that his duty was to carry out the doctrine around 
which his whole life centered — the doctrine of the Declaration of 
Independence, 

Mr. HAWLEY. Will the Senator permit me to read a little 
from the Declaration of Independence, three or four lines? 

The PRESIDING OFFICER, Does the Senator from South 
Dakota yield to the Senator from Connecticut? 

4571 



37 

Mr. PETTIGREW. If only three or four lines, I am perfectly 
willing the Senator should read them; otherwise not 
Mr. HAWLEY (reading)— 

ihIJi''r^,?,°,^F%°^^^^ °^ *^®^° Colonies, solemnly publi.sh and declare, That 
these Lnited Colonies are. and of Right ougrht to be, free wdindepfnu- 
EXT states; that they are Absolved from all Alle-iance to the British Crown 
and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain 
IS. and ought to be. totally dissolved; and that as free and i.NUErEMj nt 
STATES, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alli- 
ances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which in- 
dependent STATES may of right do. ^yui^^u. i.> 

Mr. PETTIGREW. Very good, Mr. President. lindorse every 
line of It. according to the spirit of the document itself, according 
to the ideas that all governments derive their just powers from 
the consent of the governed. That document— the portion of it 
read— absolutely refutes the idea that any power is given to con- 
quer other people and hold them in subjection. Let' us see what 
Lincoln said: 

Let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man-thi^ 
race and that race and the other race being inferior, and therefore they 
must be placed in an inferior position, discarding oar standard that we have 
left us; let us discard all these things and unite as one people throughout 
this land until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are cre- 
ated equal. * * * Ileaveyou, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in 
your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created 
equal. 

This was in Philadelphia, on his way to Washington to take the 
oath of office as President of the United States. He further said: 

Your worthy mayor [of Philadelphia] has expressed the wish, in which I 
join with him, that it were convenient for me to remain in your city long 
enough for me to consult your merchants and manufacturers, or, as it were, 
to listen to those breathings arising within the consecrated walls wherein the 
Constitution of the United States and, I will add. the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence were originally framed and adopted. I assure vou and your mayor 
that I had hoped on this occasion, and upon all occa.sious during my life, that 
I shall do nothing inconsistent with the teachings of these holy and most 
sacred walls. 

I have never asked anything that does not breathe from those walls. All 
mj' political warfare has been in favor of the teachings that come forth from 
these sacred walls. May my right hand forget its cunning and my tongue 
cleave to the roof of my mouth if I ever prove false to those teachings. I 
have often inquired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept 
this Confederacy so long "together. It was not the mere matter of the sepa- 
ration of the colonies from the motherland, but that sentiment in the Declara- 
tion of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this 
country, but hope to all the world for all future time. * * * Now. my 
friends, can this country be saved upon this basis? If it can, I shall consider 
myself one of the happiest men in the world if I can help to save it. If it can 
not be saved upon those principles it will be truly awful. But if this country 
can not be saved without giving up that principle I would rather die thaii 
abandon it. 

Yet Senators stand liere upon this floor and say that Lincoln 
spent four years of his life and went to a martyr's grave to over- 
turn that very principle. Then he goes on: 

Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated 
with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to 
be done for them as their condition will allow— 

He must have prophesied or seen in advance the speech that tlie 
Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. Spooner] was going to make, and 
the speech of the Senator from Indiana [Mr. Beveridge] also, Mr. 
President — 

what are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made 
for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the 
arguments in favor of kingcraft were of this class; they always bestrode the 
4571 



38 

necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people 
were bcttf r off tor being ridden. 

To-day we revive the argument that those people are inferior, 
and that we have got to hless them with our presence and we 
have got to shoot civilization into them; that we have got to 
butcher them by tens of thousands in order to make them more 
happy, and then that we are going to send our missionaries to 
christianize them, when already the percentage of their peoplo 
who are members of the Christian church is much greater than 
ours. 

But this argument that the Constitution is worn out or out- 
grown and this argument that the Declaration of Independence 
ia simply one of the nursery rhymes sung around the cradle of the 
Republic is not new. I read again from Lincoln. Lincoln, July 17, 
185S, in a speech, made this statement: 

Mr. Brooks, of South Carolina, in one of his speeches, when they were 
presenting him canes, silver plate, gold pitchers, and the like, for assaulting 
Senator Sumuer, distinctly affirmed his opinion that when the Constitution 
was formed it was the belief of no man tlmt slavery would last to the present 
day. He said that "I think the framers of our Constitution placed the in- 
stitution of slavery where the public mind rested, in the hope that it was in 
the course of ultimate extinction." But he went on to say that the men of 
the present age by their experience have become wiser than the framers of 
the Constitution, and the invention of the cotton gin had made the perpetuity 
of slavery a necessity in this country. 

Why. Mr. President, I do not suppose that the advocates of im- 
perialism or the doctrine of conquest, the burlesquers of the Con- 
stitution, the repudiators of the Declaration of Independence, had 
read that speech of Lincoln or had studied Brooks very much; yet 
they are not new, it appears, in their position. Brooks then 
thought that he had outlived the Constitution ; the cotton gin made 
it necessary that slavery should continue; and here to-day the new 
interpreters of the Constitution and of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence tell us that it is necessary to abandon those documents 
in order that we may conquer people in the interests of trade. 

The gist of the argument of the supporters of the Administra- 
tion is that we wish to extend our trade and commerce throughout 
the world. It is of interest in this connection to see what suc- 
cess we have had in the Philippines. 

I hold in my hand the monthly summary of the commerce of 
the Philippine Islands for July, August, and September, 1899, pre- 
pared by the division of customs and insular aii'airs, War Depart- 
ment, Washington, D. C, Government Printing Office. 

This pamphlet shows the total trade of the Philippine Islands 
for the three months stated herein: Imports, $7,077,000 from all 
over the world. From the United States they imported $o;n,000. 
or one dollar to every twenty of their imports came from the United 
States. I find by examining the different pages of this document 
that of the §331,000 of trade with the United States $110,300 was 
liquor. So, after all, if trade follows the flag it must be the liquor 
trade. 

This certainly is not an encouraging prospect for the vast ex- 
penditure of life and money in order to conquer the Philippines 
and extend the trade relations of the United States. Three hun- 
dred and thirty-one thousand dollars out of an imx'ort trade of 
$7,077,000, and §110,300 of that was American liquor! 

Tliis cry that we are going to bless the Filipinos, this talk that 
we are there for their good and their happiness and their prosper- 
ity, is also old. It has been heard before. It is the plea of the 
4571 



39 

hypocrite. It is well personified in one of Dickens's works as 
follows: 

Stretching forth his flabhy paw, Mr. Chadband lays the same on Jq-s arm 
and considers where to station him. Jo. very doubtful of his revIS 
friend s intentions and not at all clear but that something practical and pain- 
ful i.s going to be done to him, mutters, " You let me alone. I never'laTd 
nothink to you. \ou let me alone." c>ci sjiiu 

"No, my young friend." says Chadband. smoothly, "I will not let vou 
alone. And why .' Becau.se I am a harvest laborer, because I am a toiler and 
a moiler, because you are deln-ered over untoe me and are become as a nre- 
cious instrument in my hands. My friends, may I so employ this instrument 
as to use it toe your advantage, toe your profit, toe your gain, toe vour wel- 
fare, toe your enrichment! My young friend, sit upon this stool " 

Jo apparently possessed by an impression that the reverend gentleman 
wants to cut his hair, shields his head with both arms, and is got into the 
required position with great difficulty and every possible manifestation of 
reluctance. 

So it appears human nature is about the same whether in Eng- 
land or in Asia. But let us see. This doctrine that we are goiiig 
to do them good, is older even than Dickens. 

1 have read McKinley's proclamation to the Filipinos, and I have 
put together the proclamation to the people of the Philippines and 
theproclamaitonof the King of Assyria, written eighteen hundred 
years before Christ. A man would think McKiniey had plagiar- 
ized his proclamation from that. 

Ragozin.in his history of Assyria, gives a literal translation of 
a proclamation issued by Asshurbanipal to the people of Elam. 
The Elamites had gone to war. No, their country had been in- 
vaded by Asshurbanipals forces, he had overrun the land, cutting 
down the trees, filling up the wells, killing the inhabitants. He 
captured their capital city, killed their king, took 208,000 of their 
people into captivity as slaves, drove off most of the cattle of the 
rest of them, and then sent them this affectionate proclamation: 

The will of the king to the men of the coast, the sea, the sons of my serv- 
ants. 

My peace to your hearts; may you be well 

1 am watching over you, and from the sin of your king. Nabubolzikri, I 
have separated you. Now I send to you my servant Belibni to be my deputy 
over you; I have joined with you, keeping your good and your benefit in my 
si,e-ht. 

Mr. McKiniey says to the Filipinos: 

Finally, it should be the earnest and paramount aim of the Administra- 
tion to win the confidence, respect, and affection of the inhabitants of the 
Philippines by insuring to them in every possible way the full measure of 
individual rights and liberty which is the heritage of a free people, and by 
proving to them that the mission of the United States is one of benevulent 
assimilation, which will substitute the mild sway of justice and right for 
arbitrary rule. In the fulfillment of this high mission, while ujilKjlding the 
temporary administration of affairs for the greatest good of the governed, 
there will be sedulously maintained the strong arm of authority to repress 
disturbance and to overcome all obstacles to the bestowal of the lilessingsof 
good and stable government upon the people of the Philippine Islands. 

Mr. ALDRICH. Will the Senator from South Dakota yield to 
me to make a conference report? 

Mr. PETTICtREW. I will finish in a minute, and then it can be 
made. I should like to finish, as it will take me but a minute. 

How much like King George this reads. King George said: 

I am desirous of restoring to them the blessings of law and liberty equally 
enjoyed by every British subject, which they have fatally and desperately 
exchanged for the calamities of war and the arbitrary tyranny of their chiefs. 

This is what King George said to us when we rebelled. Here 

is another sample of how God is in all these things. We have 

done it to the glory of God and for the good of those peop'e. How 

common it is for men, especially when they want to do mean 

4571 



40 

tilings, to iindertalce to silence their conscience by appealing to 
the Deity: 

Los Angeles, Cad., June lo. 
I am not given to talking about prize fights, and I fear the public will not 
iindcrstaud me when I say that the Lord of Hosts was in the battle of last night. 
Like all other battles, this 13 a victory for our Lord and Saviour— 

This is Jeffries's father after he had licked Fitzsimmons— 

My boy won it because the Lord so willed it, and if he had been defeated 
it would have been through a power greater than we know of. 

I supposed he won it because he outweighed Fitzsimmons and 
outfought him. 

Thus reflected the preacher father of Jim Jeffries, the world heavy-weight 
champion prize fighter, when asked his opinion upon the results of the now 
celebrated contest. The fact can not be disguised that Mamma and Papa 
Jeffries, the big brother, and three sisters are supremely happy that the big 
boy won the battle, and that the possibilities of defeat'have caused serious 
renection. All day the curious, idle, and jubilant friends of the family have 
crowded around and about the Jeifries home in East Los Angeles. 

Now, Mr. Pi-esident, I wish to read simply an extract from Pro- 
fessor Creasy in his Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World: 

There has never been n republic yet in history that acquired dominion 
over another nation that did not rule it .selfishly and oppressively. There is 
no single exception to this rule, either in ancient or modern times. Carthage, 
Rome, Venice, Genoa, Florence, Pisa, Holland, and republican Franco all 
tyi'annizcd over every province and subject state where they gained au- 
thority. 

Mr. President, I believe that if this policy is continued there is 
no limit to its bounds; that if we can justify taking the people of 
the Philippines and governing them against their will, if we can 
justify conquering countries where our Constitution can not go, 
our armies will soon be seen marching across Mexico, down the 
Isthnaus to South America, laying death and desolation in their 
track, rearing iipon the ruins of those free governments a tyran- 
nical, despotic policy, and when it is done our liberties will be 
gone. 

Oh, you can not control this question in the United States with- 
out an immense navy and a standing army. You must have one 
man given supreme control of all, so that he can move with rapid- 
ity, so that decisions can be made in a day and armies marched 
and ships moved where danger is seen, and therefore despotism 
must be the result. 

Mr. President, a republic and an empire can not exist under the 
same flag. No country should be brought within our bounds 
v/here our Constitution can not go, and no people should ever un- 
dertake to send their constitution to a country whose inhabitants 
have not the capacity and ability to maintain and support it. 

Mr. PETTIGHE W subsequently said: This afternoon I intended 
to ask to have printed as an appendix to my speech in regard to 
the Philippine Islands certain extracts from the reports of our 
officers with regard to the character of the people of the islands. 
There is no original matter whatever in it. Some of it is from 
newspaper cox'respondents, but most of it is official, from the offi- 
cers of the Government, from the officials' reports, and from Docu- 
ment No. 02. I ask to have it printed as an appendix to my re- 
marks. 

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection to the request 
made by the Senator fi-om South Dakota? The Chair hears none, 
and the order is made. 

4571 



41 

The matter referred to is as follows: 
APPENDIX. 

CHARAGTEB OV FILIPINOS. 

It may be well to quote Gen. T. M. Anderson in the Chicago Times-Herald • 
As to the Filipinos themselves, I understand many erroneous imprcsaions 
are current. I was m the Philippines until the latter part of March, having 
been sent there m June, 1S08, in command of the first military expedition 
and during that time I had some chance for studying the Filipino character 
and mind. I regard the Filipinos, such as have been carrying on operations 
against our forces in the islaud of Luzon, as being not far IJclow the Japanese 
m intelligence and capability of culture. Nearly all can read and write- they 
have many schools, and there are a number of newspapers. Their cities are 
populous and well laid out and kept. There are many engineers and arti.sts 
among the Filipinos." 

Gen. Charles King is a close observer of people. He spent quite a time in 
the Philippines and fought the Filipinos, yet he wrote the following letter to 
the Milwaukee Journal: 

San Francisco, June 22, isoo. 
To tho Editor of the Journal, Milivaiikee, Wis. 

Dear Sir: Thinking over your telegram and request of June 7, 1 find my- 
self seriously embarrassed. As an officer of the Army there are many reasons 
why I should not give my "views of situation in the Philippines, iiow long 
fighting is likely to continue, and thoughts as to America's part in future of 
islands." 

Tho capability of the Filipinos for self-government can not be doubted; 
such men as Arellano, Aguinaldo, and many others whom I might name are 
highly educated; nine-tenths of the people read and write; all are skilled arti- 
sans in one way or another; they are industrious, frugal, temiicrate; and, 
given a fair start, could look out for themselves infinitely botti-r than our 
people imagine. In my opinion they rank far higher than the Cubans or the 
uneducated negroes to whom we have given the right of suffrage. 
Very truly, yours, 

CHARLES KING. 

As to the government maintained by the Philipjiine republic, I .shall 
quote from a letter of Lieut. Henry Pago, of the United States Army, to tho 
Chicago Record. It was written February 2.5, ISO!*. In it he says: 

" When we reached tho headquarters of Santa Ana another surprise 
awaited us, for hei'e was found some of the machinery of Aguinaldo's gov- 
ernment. Among the papers scattered about in confusion by tho retreating 
officials were telegrams, letters, and commissions showing sometliing of tlieir 
system. One letter was from a township governor asCing relief from his 
duties. A surgeon's certificate was inclosed. It had been forwarded through 
official channels to Aguinaldo's secretary of state and returned, with abun- 
dant iuclorsements, approved. With it was an order to the governor of tlie 
province to have a new election. Another letter was a complaint mado 
against another local governor for maladministration. It stated the charges 
in real legal form and was duly signed. The numerous pajiers concorniug 
school-teachers' appointments showed that the Filipinos had already jier- 
fected arrangements for the education of the youth on a large scale. 

"I might also mention the deeds of property, records of birtlis. deaths, etc., 
to show that Aguinaldo's organization is at least not a laughable farce. I 
might mention also meteorological and other scientific instruments and rec- 
ords to show that the Filipinos did not neglect science during those busy, 
warlike times. Letters dated February 4, from Malolos, showed that they 
had a good coui-ier system. A book on tactics, engravings of tlie several uni- 
forms, beautiful topogi'aphical maps, copies of tho declaration of independ- 
ence and the revolutionary constitution, military and state seals, and other 
articles all went to show that labor and intelligence were united in their pro- 
duction." . . 

Notwithstanding the difficulties under which the Filipino government ex- 
isted, how much inferior was it, as indicated by Lieutenant Page's letter, to 
otir own Government? Was it the work of a people who need tho guardian- 
ship of the United States? , ,„„„ 

In a letter to the Secretary of State Agoncillo said, on January 4, 1809: 

" Tho Philippine Islands are in a state of public order. They possess a gov- 
ernment satisfactory to their inhabitants, and are without an enemy withia 
their borders oflfering any resistance to its just operations, and they find 
themselves to be at peace with all the world." 

Every people, if left to themselves, will have as good government as they 
are entitled to, and they can not be given a better one. It is a novel doctrine 
that a remote people must have a government satisfactory to us. Since wheii 
4571 



42 

has it become essential that every weak people must have a government of 
our choosing? 

CAPACITY OF FILIPINOS FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT. 

Lieut. John D. Ford, United States Navy, of the Olympia, who left Manila 
May 9, 1899, interview in Baltimore: 

'The Filipinos are of an intelligent, industrious character. The women 
are virtuous, more so, perhaps, than those of almost any other nation. It is 
believed by many that they are a very ignorant race, bvit such is not the case. 
There is hardly a man or woman, even in the middle class, who can not read 
and write. Tlie children are given early education and are quick to learn. 
The half -savage Negritos are no more representatives of the Filipino race 
than our Indians are representatives of this great country. There are only 
about lOO.Oi 10 Negritos in a population of between 7,000,0(Jtl or 8,000,000 Filipinos, 
and it is unfair for these people to be classed with them." * * * 

Gen. Charles A. Whittier before peace commission: 

"I went over the line of the only railroad in the Philippines, leaving one 
Saturday morning (in August, 1898) and going up 1:J0 miles through the rice 
fields, a country of marvelous and most extraordinary fertility. The next 
morning wc started out early and went up to Dagupan Bay, the terminus of 
the road. * * * 

"At this time I was collector of the port, and during this time I heard all 
sorts of expressions, and I think I had a very fair opportunity— being amused 
with the natives and studying their peculiarities— to form a fair judgment. 
I stand a little isolated in my opinions, however, perhaps. Men so quickly 
dismiss the natives from their minds as simply 'niggers' and 'savages;' but 
when you think of all they have done you must give them credit for great 
capacity." 

Edwin Wildman, United States vice consul at Hongkong, m the Munsey, 
April, 1899: 

"Hundreds of natives speak English and thousands Spanish; some have 
been educated in Madrid and Paris. There are native assistants in the Ma- 
nila observatory who handle the delicate instruments for measuring sound 
waves, registering seismic oscillations, determining the movements of atmos- 
pheric distiirbances, and calculating weather prognostications. The richest 
man in the archipelago is a native. Nativecuresoccupymany of thechurches 
in the provinces. * * * Unquestionably there is good material in onr new- 
found friend the Filipino, for it is inconceivable that ho will decide to be our 
enemy: and the time is ripe for his development into a worthy and self- 
respecting member of the family of nations." 

Capt. H. L. Wells, Second Oregon Volunteers, in October. 1898, witnessed 
a grand review of the army of the Republica Filipinos at San Fernando, and a 
ball, and of these he wrote in the Pacific Monthly: 

"When I beheld the display of wealth, the bitterness of feeling of the 
planters against Spain, and their enthu.siasm tor the causeof liberty, I under- 
stood better than before how it had been possible for Aguinaldo to carry on 
the insurrection and maintain his army of barefooted warriors in the field. 
These rich, educated, and intelligent landed proprietors are the brains and 
sinew of the revolution, while the common herd, which is guided by them as 
absolutely as the populace of any country is managed by the aristocracy, is 
the bone." ,, , 

Brig. Gen. Charles A. King, interview in Catholic Citizen, Milwaukee, after 
his return home: 

"The Americans here do not realize the truth that nine-tenths of the peo- 
ple in the Philippines can read and write. Men have told me again and again 
that they can not credit it. I told those whom I met it was certainly so, and 
I have as authority the Jesuits, whose friendship I was fortunate in making 
in Manila, who are capital men and who assured me that this is so. You see 
the people are all Catholics, and their children are educated in the parochial 
schools. They have a good common-school education. There is no culture, 
excepting among the higher classes of course, but there is fair education 
everywhere; and many people have ability. The men in power whom I met 
are gentlemen, many of them scholars, educated abroad, polished in manners, 
perfect in courtesy', broad minded, and ripe in judgment. There is no rea- 
son in the world why the people should not have the self-government which 
they so passionately desire, so far as their individual ability to carry it on 
goes." . . . T^ . 

Letter of Admiral Dewey August 29, 1899, to peace commission m Pans: 

"The population of Luzon is reported to be something over 3,000,000, mostly 
natives. These are gentle, docile, and under just laws and with the benefits 
of popular education would soon make good citizens. In a telgram sent to 
the Department on June 2:5 I expressed the opinion that 'these people are 
far superior in their intelligence and more capable of self-government than 
the natives of Cuba, and I am familiar with both races.' Further inter- 
course with them has confirmed me in this opinion. 
4571 



43 

" Panay, Cebtt, Xegros, and Leyte are very thickly populated and well cul- 
tivated. In tliese islands the natives are conceded to be the best educated 
and furthest advanced in civilization." 

Lieut. Henry Page, U. S. A., in letter in Chicago Record, May, 1800: 

" When we reached the headquarters at Santa Ana anotlier surprise 
awaited us, for here was found some of the machinery of A.aninaldo's govern- 
ment. Among the papers scattered about in confusion by the retreating 
officials were telegrams, letters, and commissions, showiiig somctliing of 
their system. One letter was from a- township governor asking relief from 
his duties; a surgeon's certificate was inclosed. It had been forwarded 
through official channels to Aguinaldo's secretary of state and returned with 
abundant indorsement approved. With it was an order to the governor of 
the province to have a new election. Another letter was a complaint made 
again.st another local governor for maladministration. It stated the charges 
in real legal form, and was duly signed. The numerous papers concerning 
school-teachers' appointments showed that the Filipinos had already per- 
fected arrangements for the education of the youth on a large scale. 

"I might also mention the deeds of property, records of births, deaths, etc., 
to show that Aguinaldo'sorganization is at least not a laughable farce. 1 might 
mention also meteorological and other scientific instruments and records to 
show that the Filipinos didn't neglect science during those busy, warlike 
times. Letters dated February 4 from Malolos showed that they had a good 
courier system. A book on tactics, engravings of the several uniforms, beau- 
tiful topographical maps, copies of the declaration of independence and the 
revolutionary constitution, military and state seals and other articles all 
went to show that labor and intelligence were united in their production. 

"Very naturally the whole Filipino structure is built upon the Spanish 
model. Their uniforms, like every detail of government, are copied more or 
less exactly. But the Filipino is an imitative little body. He is always anx- 
ious to learn new methods, and he masters them very quickly." 

Provisional constitution, proclaimed June :iO, 1898: 

"-Vrt 2. As soon as the inhabitants of each town are free from Spanish 
domination, the most intelligent and capable of the people, distinguished by 
their intelligence, social position, and honorable conduct, both in the towns, 
villages, and provinces, shall assemble in open public meeting and there pro- 
ceed to elect, by a majority of votes, a chief of the town, and also a head man 
or chief of each suburb cr village, recognizing as such suburbs or villages 
not only those before as sxxch, but as well the existmg centers of population. 
All those inhabitants that possess the character stated m the conditions ex- 
pressed, that are lovers of the independence of the Philippine Islands and 
have arrived at 31 years of age, shall have the right to compose this public 
meeting and be eligible for election." .r- .. , ^^^ ^ t r i-„ 

Capt Mark L. Hersey, quartermaster. Twelfth Lnited States Infantry, 
interviewed in Boston Globle, August, 1890: 

"Is Manila a good place for Americans?" , ,, . t i „- 

"For the capitalists, I should say yes. For the laboring man, no. Labor 

too cheap Whv, you can hire the best of male servants for St American 




sen ted 1 

peopTefa irrgl'paiToTthem bearg^able" toli-e^ and write." In "jV ;»•"}?' '■^Pf 
rience I have come in contact with the Mexican greasers ^n^ the CubaM 
From what I saw and heard while m Manila 1 have no hesitation in saying 
that they are the superior of either of these people. They are men of educa- 
tion and refinement." 

"Are they competent to govern themselves? i t =«o. 

" Well, the Mexicans have succeeded very well in that direction, and 1 see 
no reasoil why the Filipinos shouldn't, inasmuch as I believe them far more 
intelligent than the former." 

" What sort of field is it for the missionary?" co,-,, 

"Well, they might .iust as well send them to convert the people ot bpain. 
There is "iust as much chance to make converts." r. t^ -^^^ 

Gen. Cbarles A. King, letter to Milwaukee Journal from San Francisco, 

''^^^^T w cn^-ibilitv of the Filipinos for self -government can not be doubted. 
Such men as A 4lTano AguinLlo, and many others whom 1 ni>ght name are 
^i<;i,u-od 11 rated Nine-tenths of the people read and write. All aio skiuett 

IliiiSisigitilis 

4.571 



44 

President Schurman, interview in Chicago, August 21,- 1899: 

"What Sort of people are the Tagalos?" 

" Well, most ot them are Christians. They and the people of the Visayas 
and parts of the people of all the other islands of the Philippines are Catho- 
lics, converted to Christianity by the Spaniard. Some of those in Luzon are 
still barbari.ins. They have a heathen form of worshipof the Malayan sort." 

President Schurman interviewed in Omaha Bee, August 19, is'.t'.i: 

"It will be a surprise to many Ameiicans to know," said President Schur- 
man, " that the educated Filipino is the-equl to any other civilized people in 
the world. You may take their lawyers, doctors, artists, and educated busi- 
ness men and put them alongside of the same class of any other country, and 
they will equal them in mental capacity and in every attribute of citizenship. 
Great are the possibilities of these people and their country. They are quick 
to perceive the advantages of Western civilization: they are inspired by a 
hope to improve their condition intellectually and materially. Americans 
must deal gently with the Filipino. He is entitled to sympathetic considera- 
tion. There are many pleasing traits in his character; his home life is ex- 
emplary, and as a class he is well disposed toward his neighbor or liis superior. 
Once his confidence is gained, if dealt with in a frank, straightforward man- 
ner, the misunderstanding will all be dissipated and the Filipino will realize 
that the American is his friend." 

The Catholic World gives the following statistics of the church member- 
ship in the Philippines: 

Under Augustinans "■ 083, 131 

Under Recollects - l,lV5,1.5(j 

Under Franciscans 1,010, 753 

Under Dominicans CltO.SSl 

Under Jesuits 213,065 

Under secular clergy 9(57,294 

Extract from a letter by Orman Osbon, of the First South Dakota, dated 
at Bacolor, Philippine Islands, August 31, 1899: 

"There are in this town many wealthy people who were glad to see us 
come. Many in the States doubtless believe this country a wilderness and 
the people .savages. I would like to take them into some houses here and see 
them stare. There is one gentleman here who formerly practiced in the 
Manila courts. While you might not expect him to be quite a savage, you 
would scarcely look for a fine Greek scholar in the jungles of Luzon: yet 
here is surely one. There is another family of musicians here. They have a 
very fine place, and I have spent some as pleasant evenings there listening to 
the piano, violin, mandolin, harp, and singing as 1 ever passed in my life. 

"Seiior Joven is a scientist quite up in modern electrical research. His 
house is lighted by an electric plant of his own manufacture. He was edu- 
cated in rfongkong and Japan, and is a P'reethinker. But the man I am most 
interested in is the principal of the schools, from whom I am taking instruc- 
tions in Spanish. I go down at 3 o'clock and business begins. I teach him 
English and he teaches me Spanish." 

Captain O'Farrell in the Irish World: 

Washington, D. C. 
Editor Irish World: 

There are about 600 islands in the Philippine group, but there are only 11 
of them large enough to merit consideration, viz: Luzon, Mindanao. Samor, 
Panay, Negros, Polaun, Mludoro, Levte, Cebu. Masl:ate, and Bojol. Luzon, 
the largest of these islands, contains about 4S,iM) square miles— nearly equal 
in size to Virginia or Ohio. 

The population has been estimated at about 10,000,000, but is not accurately 
known. We are indebted to the jiriests for census and maps of the islands. 

The Sulu, or Moros, should not be confounded with the Philippine or Chris- 
tian islands. , . . , . , 

There are five Catholic bishops, with their respective dioceses, in which 
the members are envmerated as follows: The diocese of Manila, 1,817,4-15; 
Cebu, 1,71S,,S72; Jaro, 1 310,;52; Viga, 997,0X9; Camarines, 691,298, making a to- 
tal of (;,5f5,!iy8. 

These jieople have their colleges, schools, churches, and convents through- 
oiit the islands. 

There has not been a city or village captured by our army but had well- 
appointed .separate schools"for boys and girls, while the large cities have fine 
colleges and seminaries. Foreman, in his book on the Philippines, published 
by Scri liner's Sons. 1899, says: "The teaching offered to students in Manila 
was very advanced. The curriculum in the Athena?um emiiraced algebra, 
arithmetic, agriculture, commerce, commercial law, commercial geography, 
English, French, geometry, Greek, history, Latin grammar, Latin composi- 
tion, mechanics", mercantile arithmetic, natural history, physics, chemistry, 
philosophy, painting, rhetoric and poetry, Spanish classics, Spanish composi- 
tion, topography, and trigonometry. 
4571 



45 

"In the high school for girls the following was the curriculum: 

"Arithmetic, rlrawiug, dress cutting, French, geography, geometry, geo- 
logy, history ot Spain, history of the Philippines, music, needlework, physics, 
reading— prose and verse— Spanish grammar, sacred history. 

" There are still higher colleges where students study theology and law." 

Foreman further says: "The natives have an inherent passion for music. 
Musicians are to he found in every village, and there was scarcely a parish 
without its orchestra." 

Of course we know that the people are mainly of the Malay race, and are 
divided into several tribes. They speak about tvvenj^y different dialects. 
The two greatest or most important divisions are the Tagals and the Visa- 
yans. It is stated that 70 to 80 per cent of the Tagals can read and write tlieix- 
own language, which, to their credit be it said, they have preserved, despite 
the efforts of the government to force the Spanish language upon them. 

Magellan discovered these islands in 1531. Engl and conquered them from 
Spain in 1702. 

The natives under the leadei-ship of General Anda, who was the Aguinaldo 
of that day, continued the war against the British for about two years, fight- 
ing over the same ground contested between Otis and Aguinaldo during the 
past six months. 

In 1764 a treaty of peace was made between England and Spain, when the 
British withdrew. It appears that they were glad to get out of the place, as 
they failed to collect a ransom of $.5,OfiO which they levied on Manila at the 
time of its capture. I may also state here that a royal commission had pre- 
viously advised Philip III, King of Spain, to abandon the islands be?ause 
they were unproductive and costly. His Majesty declined on account of the 
salvation of the souls of the natives who had been converted. 

The chief products of the islands are sugar, rice, tobacco, and hemp. 

GEVEItAL, REEVE'S TESTIMONY— SAYS DIFFITSTOX OP KNOWLEDGE AJ[OXG 
riLTPINOS IS GENERAL— DOMINICAN UNIVERSITY WITH 5,000 STUDE.XTS— 
CONCILIATORY METHODS WOULD HAVE PREVENTED THE WAR-OTLS'S 
ARROGANT POLICY. 

[From the San Francisco, Cal., Republican.] 

When I was appointed chief of police of a city of 350,000 inhabitants 1 
deemed it wise to ascertain as soon as possible something definite and to the 
point regarding the character, traits, disposition, and intelligence of the na- 
tive population, Accordinarly I sought the counsel of the leadmg English, 
Scotch and C4erman merchants. They told me that the Filipinos were intel- 
ligent industrious, peaceable, and fond of home life. Personal investigation 
convinced me that the natives were engaged in all branches of industry. In 
theprofessionsof law and medicine were many of the natives. 

The best dentist in Luzon was an officer in Aguinaldo s army. In the tieia 
of mechanical and railway pursuits the Filipinos were active and promising. 

I was surprised to ascertain that the diffusion of knowledge was general. 
The percentage of natives able to read and write was large. _ 

The enrollment of students in the San Thomas and Dominican universities 
and the attention paid to such branches of knowledge as law, medicine, hberal 
arts, and civil engineering excited my surprise. .^ . . ^^ . •<.„ x 

Five thousand students were enrolled at the Dominican University. J. 
mention these facts to dispel the impression that the Filipinos arc ignorant 

^°Tliroi1ghont the plovinces in the island of Luzon good common schools and 
high schools are maintained, the teachers being native priests. 

In the provinces we found courts and schools established, and found local 
authorities administering affairs of government. Here was ^system of col- 
lecting and disbursing the money so collected m the interests of the goyerned. 

The disposition of the natives was that of extreme friendship toward 

"^^n^he^city of Manila the Filipinos, especially those who were wealthy, 
were anxious to remove the impression that they were ignorant of the re- 
quh ements of modern life and the usages of civilization. They readily ex- 
tended the hospitality of their homes to American officers of themilitaiy 

''"Wlliio I™General Garcia's guest I met an officer of the staff who spoke 
English fluently Naturally the future of the islands was the topic of con- 
Satk)" which brovight forward the question whether the natives were 
capable of self^overnment. General Garcia's talk was interpreted. He 
fa?ored a pol cy of pei^itting the natives to test their ability to govern 
themselves^mdlr the protection of the United States. The same sentiments 

^TenerKefve^^s^askellfthebloodshed-theconflictofar 

4571 



46 

been averted by an intelligent policy of conciliation, and to the (luestion ho 

replii'ci: ^ ,, 

Condliatorv methods wonld have prevented the war. 

General ( )ti's's unfortunate proclamation of January i rendered concihation 
almost inii}Mssil>le. He adopted the policy of ignoring the natives, of treating 
them as half civilized savages. ,,,,,. ,- i. , 

Now, we all agree to the propo.sition that the insurrection must be sup- 
pressed, but in the beginning a conciliatory course was not adopted. 

No indication was given to tlie Filipinos as to the future intentions of the 
Government. In August, September, and October, immediately following 
the capture of Manila, the Filipinos kept inquiring what we were going to do, 
and our authorities replied, " Wo can not toll until the Paris Commission gets 
through " The Inlipino would ask, -'What will you do if you acquire the is- 
lands "" Ann sti'l no liint was given to them by General Otis until it was too 
late He ignored them completolv. At every step of the peace negotiations 
ho stipulated that nothing should bo considered until the Fihpinos laid dovyn 
their arms. Herein is where the natives mistrusted the Americans. The 
Filipinos had many lesFons from Spain in the folly of laying down arms. 
They were not able to comprehend the difference between Spanish and 
American promises. 

ADMI15AL DEWEVS GOOD OPINION OF THE FILIPINOS 

Admiral Dewey entertain.s a high opinion of the industry and intelligence 
of the natives. He employed many of them at Cavite Arsenal, and spoke 
hi'dilv of them. The natives expressed great admiration for the Admiral. 
He holds to the opinion that the Filipinos are capable of self-government, and, 
in mv judgment, he firmly believes that the war could have been honorably 
avo'ded by an enlightened policy of conciliation in dealing with the natives. 
The Filipinos are much better fitted for independence and self-government 
than are the Cubans. It is mv understanding that Admiral Dewey has on 
several occasions stated that the Fihpinos were capable of self-government, 
and that a wise policy of conciliation would have averted the war against the 
natives. 

NAVAL PAYMASTER AVILCO.X FOUND A GOOD GOVERNMENT AND A HIGHLY 
CIVILIZED PEOPLE. 

[Paymaster W. R. Wilcox, United States Navy, in the Independent.] 

No doubt it is a misfortune that the Filipino does not understand Ameri- 
can valor, and I dare say it is equally uniilea-^ant that the average American 
does not know the true character of the natives of the Philii)pine Islands. 
Diplomacy could do much, and justice as wo claim for our.selves could do 
more. 

HOSPITALITY OF THE FILIPINOS. 

I was fortunate in being allowed by Admiral Dewey to make a long jour- 
ney through the island of Luzon; in fact, I covered the whole northern por- 
tion from Manila to Apari with the then Naval Cadet Sargent, and in no 
country have I been treated with more kindly hospitality. 

On reaching Aritao, the presidente local put us up in an old convent, and 
his band serenaded us at night, and in the morning everywhere the same 
generous kindness was shown. Our next stop was at Bambang, where the 
nephew of Aguinaldo mot us some distance out of town, guns tiring and con- 
vent bells ringing. 

AGUINALDO'S POLISHED COURTESY. 

In the evening a fine orchestra was stationed in the hall, and lulled two 
sleepv Americanos to rest in sweetest strains, for almost all Filipinos can play 
some'sort of music. In leaving this spot we were accompanied by soldiers, 
as usual, and by Aguinaldo himself, to Bayombong, capita,l of the province of 
Nueva Viscaya. I was met at the bank of the river by the presidente local, 
and we rode into town amid flags flying and the baud playing, and were taken 
to the municipal building. 

PEOPLE OF THE INTERIOR HIGHLY ACCOMPLISHED. 

From this place our nest important stop was Iligan, the capital of the 
•orovince of Isabella, whore millions of dollars come m annually to purchase 
the product of tobacco which is grown in this perhaps most fertile province 
in the whole of Luzon. On our first night in this inland capital we were 
given a dance, at which 50 well-dressed young ladies and the same number ot 
gentlemen attended ; I was sorry, indeed, I had not iny dress suit. One young 
fadv with whom I danced had a splendid gown of rare silk, handsomely em- 
bro"idered, and she danced, I confess, better than I: she wasa fine playeron the 
piano, and .sang many songs for us. The next night a theater was given, ana 
4571 



47 

the players were quite as good as in some sliows in a more pretentious 
country. 

GENERAL LAWTON'S PUOTEST. 

Rev. Peter McQueen, of Boston, returned in August from Lho Pliilii)pinos, 
and he reports Maj. Gen. Henry W. Lawton as saying: 

" The Filipinos are a very fine set of soldiers. They are far batter than the 
Indians. The latter never fight unless they have the absolute advantage. 
The Tagals are what I would call a civilized race. They are good mochauios, 
imitative— they manufacture everything. They have arsenals and cartridge 
factories and powder mills. They can manufacture everything they need. 
There is a rude ai'm they are getting the knack of making. Taking every- 
thing into consideration— the few facilities they have, the many drawbracks — 
they are a very ingenious and artistic race. And taking into account the dis- 
advantages they have to fight against in arms, equipment, and military disci- 
pline, without artillery, short of ammunition, powder inferior, shells reloaded 
until they are defective, inferior in every particular of equipment and sup- 
plies, they are the bravest men I have ever seen. The Filipinos are not mil- 
itary by nature. They are rather domestic in tastes and habits, peace loving 
and industrious. 

"Among the Filipinos there are many cultiired people who would ornament 
society anywhere in the world— ladies who have studied and traveled; men 
who have had a good education and a fine brain. Take them as a class, there 
can as many of them read and write as the inhabitants in many places in 
America. As for their treachery, you would not have to come so far as this 
to find that. There is plenty of it in North America. All nations are treach- 
erous, more or less. Some men and nations have treachery trained out of 
them more than others. What we want is to stop this accursed war. It is 
time for diplomacy, time for mutual understandings. These men are indom- 
itable. At Bacoor bridge they waited till the Americans brought their can- 
non to within 3.5 yards of their trenches. Such men have the right to be 
heard. All they want is a little justice." 

[Hongkong Telegraph.] 

THE FILIPINOS. 

From the constantlv growing crop of exploded stories concerning the moral 
turpitude and general worthlessness ol the Filipinos, it is very evident that 
much of our previous information on the subject has been inspired by other 
motives than a desire to tell the truth about them. Our experience with the 
Culja prevaricator seems to have been duplicated in the Philippines, and for 
this reason it seems particularly unfortunate that none of our consular offi- 
cials in Manila or Hongkong, who from longer residence best understand 
their character, were sent to Paris along with General Merritt for the more 
complete enlightenment of our peace commissioners. _ 

General Merritt's information and opinions concerning the military and 
naval situation at Manila, reinforced as they undoubtedly are by those of 
Admiral Dewey, were, of course, vitally necessary to the commissionei-.s at 
thiftime. ButTt could not be expected that after an experience of but four 
or five weeks of army operations in and around Manila, he could fur n.vh that 
variltylnd exactness of information concerning the natives that either Con- 
«?ul-General Wildman or Consul Williams IS possessed 9f. „., , , „ 

Tt is a somewhat significant fact that both of these civil officials, who have 
bVedSTnTclosely observed the Filipinos for several years, have a much 
Wlier opinfon of thim than do the all- wise and absolutely truthful prejs 
Se^poSients, with a few weeks' observation in a time ot turmoil amt ley- 
Xtfon and a grelt desire tosend a good "big story- over the cable to their 

^^T'he consuls however, happen to be backed in their favorable opinion of 
4.v» ^ntfrnc: bv Admiral Dewey and also by Prof. Dean C!. Worcester, who 
snlnrneI?ly^oury™arrontlTe whole archipelago, engaged in his researches 
and coUections as a naturalist, and who undoubtedly came in contact with 
morrclasses and varieties of the Philippine natives than any other white 

"^ ThTsHs a ?^irt of what PrSor Worcester has to say on this subject in tJie 
4371 



48 

tal characteristics alike may fairly claim a place, not among the middling 
ones merely, but among the higlier name^i inscribed on the world's national 
scale. He IS characterized by a concentrated, never-absent self-respect; an 
habitual self-restraint in word and deed, very rarely broken except when ex- 
treme provocation induces the transitory bu t fatal f .lenzy known as " amuck ; " 
an inbred courtesy equally diffused through all classes, high or low; by un- 
failing decorum, prudence, caution, cheerfulness, ready hospitality, and cor- 
rect, though not inventive, taste. His family is a pleasing sight— much sul> 
ordination and little constraint, liberty, not license. Orderly children, re- 
spected parents, women subject but not oppressed, men ruling but not despotic, 
reverence with kindness, obedience in affection— these form a lovable picture 
by no means rare in the villages of tiie Eastern isles." " 

This is, indeed, a very different story from those we have been hearing, 
and while Professor Worcester does not think the Philippine native is yet 
capable of complete self-government, does it not seem that by an entirely 
considerate, ,iust, and humane leading hand extended from this great nation 
of ours he may ultimately become so, and make his country fit for a colonial 
union, at least, with the United Stsxtes'!— Boston Times. 



FILIPINO CIVILIZATION, AS DISCOVERED BY A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT OF 
THE MINNEAPOLIS TIMES AND UNITED STATES ARMY OFFICERS. 

Minneapolis, July 19, ISOO. 

A special from Manila to the Times from its special corre.spondent contains 
the following: 

"Those who believed that the natives in the country districts were wild 
and untutored savages have been most agreeably surprised. The Tagalogs 
of central Luzon are by no means a barbarian people, even though tlieir feet 
are uncovered and their right to bare arms has not been infringed. The 
Pampangese, or the natives of Pampanga province, are more refined in ap- 
pearance, larger in stature, and more intelligent than their southern neigh- 
bors, the Tagalogs, and speak a different dialect. Every town has its church 
and school, and in almost every house the soldiers found books, well-written 
letters, and other evidences of intelligence and education. 

" The scrawny and measly-looking rabble that makes Manila hideous is not 
to be compared with the Filipinos of the country districts. 

The Times correspondent took particular pains to inquire into the kind of 
government that had prevailed in the ditTerent towns during tin- regime of 
the Filipino republic. In Baliuag. the largest town capturi>d by Lawtou's 
flying column. President Marciano, a full-blood native, was directing affairs 
of local government in a manner highly satisfactory to the business men and 
other residents of the charming pueblo. 

The 2.">,(XKJ or 30.000 inhabitants of the town were mply protected in their 
personal and civil rights by a iiolice force consisting of twelve picked native. 
An apartment in the upper story of the large and magnificent church wa 
used as a council chamber and a court room, where civil and criminal case 
were tried. Serious crimes, however, are of rare occurrence among the na 
tives. 

When San Miguel was taken several prominent Filipino business men of 
the town remained behind, trusting to the generous treatment of the victori- 
ous invaders. Simon Teeson, president of the pueblo, had dejiarted for the 
mountain districts with the majority. His residence was made brigade head- 
quarters. Its interior decorations were super!), and bore high testimony to 
the skill of the native as a painter, a fresco artist, and a wood carver. 

As Genei-al Lawton and Colonel Somers indulged in a game on the departed 
insurgent mayor's billiard table, they remarked that at home people were 
still of the opinion that the soldiers here were fighting savages armed with 
bows and arrows. Said Lawton: "No one would believe us over in the States 
if we told them of finding such luxuries as this in the ' wilas of the Philippine 
Jungle.'" 

Simon Teeson had been mayor of San Miguel during the Spanish regime, 
but became an active spirit iii the revolutionary councils at the time of the 
rebellion in IWW. Every native that the writer talked with at San Miguel 
was of the opinion that tlie Filipino government, both national and local, 
was satisfactory, and those who were informed on political events all ex- 
pressed the belief that the ])resfnt trouble would not have occurred had the 
Adiniiiistration at Washington given the Filipino peoplea definite promise of 
iiide]"'ndence, either immediate or future. The proclamation by (Jeneral 
Otis, .laiuiary 4, crushed their hopes, and they could not understand why the 
United States should not treat them in the same way as the Culjans. San 
Miguel has always been an insurgent hotbed, and its numerous wealthy 
Eatives have contributed large sums of money to the revolutionary cause. 

After San Miguel, the next important town taken was San Isidro, in the 
province of Nueva Ecija. This place had been the capital of the Filipino 
4571 



49 

republic since the fall of Malolos, and here Aguinaldo and members of the 
caoinet and cong-ress were well known. 

Each day's developments are disclosing the base duplicity employed by the 
McKmley Admmistration in dealing with the Spanish-American and Mc- 
Kinley's private war in the Asiatic country. General Beeves, Gen(>ral Kinc- 
Commodore Ford, Surgeon McQuestion. and many other Army and Navy 
officers who have returned from the Philippines, to sav nothing of the scores 
of privates who have been discharged after nearly a year in that <-ountry, 
demonstrate beyond question that the Filipinos, the soldiers themselves, and 
the public generally, have been " flimtlammed "' for tire past year completely 
by the "board of strategy" at Washington, ostensibly con&'isting of Alger, 
Corbin, and McKinley. Of course behind this body of war managers are the 
millionaire bondholders and franchise speculators who guide the acts of the 
public servants, and with the assistance of the Associated Press trust and 
secret news censor, news is manufactured and public utterances made by 
those in charge. Secretly the Government is being committed to entirjly a 
different position. 

The public has been given to understand that the Cuban people are being 
rapidly " christianized " and efforts made by our war managers to put thein 
in condition for self-government from our American stavidijoint, while every- 
thing possible has been done secretly to disorganize and discourage them and 
give the world to understand they are treacherous and villainous in the ex- 
treme. Our space at this time will not permit us togive in detail the numer- 
ous dastardly outrages that are being perpetrated upon these people under 
the pretended guise of education, but every thoughtful citizen who has fol- 
lowed the trend of our national ollicial managers knows the tableau behind 
the scenes will not bear the scrutiny of rigid public consciousness. 

What is true of Cuba concerning the duplicity pi-acticed through the con- 
nivance of the dollar-above-man speculators, aided by their willing tools in 
charge of governmental affairs, has been more than duplicated tenfold in the 
Philippine Islands. 

Tlie Spanish- American war was instituted by Congress in the interest of 
humanity, to free from industrial slavery what was supposed to be about 
4m»,l.KJ<J Ciiljan people who were not so well equipped for self-government as 
the S, 000,001 1 Filipinos, if Admiral Dewey is to be believed, yet from the very 
outset, early in ib'JH, the Administration was secretly conniving to change 
our form of government, fought for at Bunker Hill aud Gettysburg, and 
adopt an imperial government under the pretense of expansion, which was to 
commit the 8,000,000 people to industrial slavery in the Philipjune ('ountry. 

Early in the summer of 1898, Maj. F. T. Green, of the United States Volun- 
teers, was instructed to investigate the Philippine Islands and see whether 
ourinsurgentallie-iwero in possession of that country, and if they wore such 
people as were able to govern themselves, and also to report on tlie resources 
of the islands. On August :50, 1898, Major Green made his report (see Situate 
Document No. 62, Fifty-fifth Congress, third session) to General :Merritt, and 
through him the War Department, and among other things said: 

" In August, 1890, au insurrection broke out in Cavite under the leader.ship 
of Emiiio Aguinaldo. and soon spread to other provinces ou both sides of Ma- 
nila. It continued with varying success on both sides, and the trial and exe- 
cution of numerous insurgents, until December, 1897. when the governor- 
general, Preino de Rivera (Spanish), entered into written agreement with 
Aguinaldo. It required that Aguinaldo and the other insurgent leaders 
should leave the country, the (Spanish) Government agreeing to pay them 
$800,000 in silver, and promising to introduce numerous reforms, including 
representation in the Spanish Cortes, freedom of the press, and the expulsion 
of" secularization of the monastic orders. 

'•Aguinaldo and his associates went to Hongkong and Singapore. A por- 
tion of the money, filOO.UOO, was deposited in the banks of Hongkong, and a 
lawsuit soon aro.se between Aguinaldo aud one of his subordinate chiefs 
named Artcho, which is interesting on account of the honorable position 
taken by Aguinaldo. Artcho sued for a division of the money among insur- 
gents according to rank. Aguinaldo claimed that the money was a trust 
fund and was to remain on deposit until it was seen whether the Spaniards 
would carry out their promised reforms, and if they did not, it was to bo 
u.sed to defray the expenses of a new insurrection. The suit was settled out 
of court by paying Artcho S5.000. Aguinaldo is now using the money to carry 
on operations of the present insurrection.'' ^ ..-■tt i • 

This was ilaior Green's official report to the War Department at Washing- 
ton made August 30, 1898. It clearly showed the insurgent leaders were will- 
iii^-'to be exiled from their country in order that the Filipinos might receive 
the benefit of the Spanish reforms promised. The same report also showea 
none of the reforms promised by the Spanish Government were given, and 
Aguinaldo had kept the money to prosecute another insurrection for the 
freedom of his countrymen from Spanish industrial slavery. So that when 
Admiral Dewey learned of the ability of the leading insurgents he was anx- 
4571-4 



60 

ious to cooperate with them in driving: away the Spaniards, and he secured - 
communication witli General Aguinaldoin April, 1898, and assisted him with 
anns and munitions of war, giving him to understand his counti-ymen would 
be treated the same as Cuba "and have their independence. With this state 
of facts and many more before the Administration, last winter they caused 
the report to be sent out that Spain had bought Aguinaldo off and that he 
was a mercenary and dishonest scoundrel, with no ability, and justly ought 
to be killed, in order that the Mohammedans might christianize the rest of 
the Filipinos. 

DEWEY'S VIEWS. 

In June, 1898, Admiral Dewey wired the Administration at "Washington of 
the fitness of the Filipinos for self-government, and his sympathies were with 
the struggling insurgents in securing them their independence. Knowing 
the mercenary motives of the Administration managers, it was the most 
natural thing in the world for Admiral Dewey to cut the cable and keep the 
gang at Washington from having direct comnranication with him for several 
months. He M'as aware of the secret work of the Administration in their 
silent effort to nrepare for the subjection of the Philippine Islands and mak- 
ing industrial slaves of these struggling Malays, and being a true American 
who had assisted in freeing 400,000 black slaves imder our Declaration of In- 
dependence, he used his efforts to give the Filipinos their freedom. 

Accordingly he prepared another telegram for the secret managers at 
Washington (see Senate document, No. 63, above referred to) with a view to 
aiding these A-siatic insurgents in securing their independence before the 
treaty with Spain was closed and we paid the Spanish bondholders the 
S30,00O,C00 for their quitclaim deed for something they didnot own. His second 
one read as follows: 

'•United States Naval Force on Asiatic Station, 

"Flagship Baltimore, Manila, Philippine Islands, August 28, 1303. 

" In a telegram sent the Department on June 23, 1 expressed the opinion 
that ' these people are far superior in their intelligence and more capable of 
self-government than the natives of Cuba, and I am familiar with both races.' 
Further intercourse with them has confirmed me in this opinion. 

"DEWEY." 

Is it any wonder that the hero of Manila should have become disgusted 
with the Washington commercial warriors who were prostituting the fun- 
damental principles of this Govermnent, and asked to be returned to the 
United States? 

CONSUL-GENERAL. 

In this same Senate document is moi'e interesting correspondence which 
shows the agreement made with General Aguinaldo to secure his leadership 
in driving the Spaniards from the Philippines, even before Admiral Dewey 
destroyed the Spanish fleet. 
Consul-Goneral Pratt wired Washington oflficials as follows: 

Consulate General United States, 

Singapore, April US, 1S9S. 

On the evening of the 23d instant, I was confidentially informed of the 
arrival here of the supreme ruler of the Philippines, General Aguinaldo, by 
H. W. Bray, an English gentleman of high standing, who. after fifteen years' 
residence as a merchant and planter in the Philippines, had been compelled 
by the disturbed condition of things resulting from Spanish misrule, to 
abandon his property and leave there, and from whom I had previously ob- 
tained much valuable information for Commodore Dewey regarding fortifica- 
tions, coal deposits, etc., at different points in the islands. 

Being aware of the great prestige of General Aguinaldo -with the insur- 
gents, and that no one, either at home or abroad, could exert over them the 
same influence and control that he could, I determined at once to see him, 
and at my request a secret interview was accordingly ari-anged for the fol- 
lowing morning, Suadav the 24th, in which, besides General Aguinaldo, were 
only present the general's trusted advisers and Mr. Bray, who acted as inter- 
preter. 

I telegraphed the Commodore the same day as follows, through our consul- 
general at Hongkong: 

"Aguinaldo, insurgent leader, here; will come to Hongkong and arrange 
with Commodore for general coopei-atious with insurgents at Manila if de- 
sired. Telegraph. ,,„.„. „,,„ „ 

"PRATT." 

The Commodore's reply regarding this: 

" Tell Aguinaldo come as soon as possible. _ 

"DEWEY." 

I received it late that nierht and at once communicated to General Agui- 
naldo, who, with his aid-de-camp and private secretary, all under assumed 
4571 



names, I sncceeded in getting off by the Britisli steamer Malacca, -wliich left 
here on Tuesday the 26th. 

E. S. PRATT, 
Consul-General, Hingapore. 

"This Senate Document No. 62 gives the following further evidence of an 
agreement with Aguinaldo, which was wired to Washington: 

Singapore, May .5, 1S9S. 
I regret to have to report that the -circumstances attending the departure 
from here of General Aguinaldo to join Commodore Dewey, which 1 had en- 
deavored so hard to prevent being disclosed, were, in substance, made public 
in yesterday's edition of the Singapore Free Press. The facts are, in the 
main, properly given. 

E. S. PRATT, 
United States Consul General, Singapore. 

Senate Document No. 62 contains the article above referred to by the con- 
sul-general which appeared in the Singapore Free Press, and apart of it reads 
as follows, and was by Pratt said to be correctly given: 

"The consul general of the United States, coinciding with the general 
views expressed during the discussion, placed himself at once in telegraphic 
communication with Admiral Dewey, between whom and Mr. Pratt a fre- 
quent interchange of telegrams consequentlj^ took place. 

" General Aguinaldo's policy embraces t he independence of the Philippines, 
v/hose internal affairs would be controlled under European and American 
advisor -i. American protection would be desirable temporarily, on the same 
lines as that which might be instituted hereafter in Cuba." 

This Singapore Free Press said the above were the arrangements with 
General Aguinaldo, and Mr. Pratt .said that this was the agreement. 

With these facts and hundreds of a similar character before the Adminis- 
tration at Washington for more than a year past, under the censor.ship of 
Government officials the public has been given a much different view of pre- 
tended existing facts. Who can expect the puVjlic to believe in thisXational 
Administration when the facts are plain that deception of the grossest char- 
acter was practiced on the Filipino insurgents, and also on the patient people 
of the United States? The .Journal will from time to tim.e give its readers 
more of the duplicity of the national servants at Washington and elsewhere. 

At this interview.' after learning from General Aguinaldo the state of and 



efnment to point out the dtinger of continuing independent action at this 
stage and having convinced him of the expediency of cooperating with our 
fleet then at Hongkong, and obtained the assurance of his willingness to pro- 
ceed" thither and confer with Commodore Dewey to that end. should the lat- 
ter so desire, I telegraphed the Commodore the same day as follows through 
our consul-general at Hongkong: 

" \guinaldo, insurgent leader, here. Will come Hongkong arrange with 
Commodore for general cooperation insurgents Manila, if desired, tele- 
graph. "PRATT." 

The Commodore's reply reading thus: 

"Tell Aguinaldo come soon as po.ssible. "DEWEY "' 

T received it late that night, and at once communicated to General Agui- 
naldo ^X with his aid-de-camn and private secretary, all under a.ssumecl 
names, I succeeded in getting off by the British steamer Malacca, which left 

^^T^rt^Mieraf 'imprlssid me as a man of intelligence, ability, and courage, 
andworthv the confidence that has been placed in him. 

\ few days later Consul Pratt reported some conversations with Agui- 

''''J-?hrGeSShl'i- 'stated that he hoped the United States would as- 
sume T?rS on of the Philippines for at least long enough to allow the in- 
haWtants to establish a government of their own, in the organization of 

^^^^t7to ^u£s?atS^!J;Jw ?l^s^o^^ei^^^e%bout and the events 
, ^VJ:^^L tn i^Sul Pratt forwarded to the Department of SHate a clip- 
Sng??om^l?e sin.^apo^^^ Prels giving an account of the conference and 

iiSiiisiiifliP 

4571 



52 

"In December last General Primo tie Rivera, who above .all other Spanish 
generals has an intimate knowledge of the country and its inhal)itants, found 
the position untenable for Loth parties. Neither of these had the remotest 
chance of terminating the rebellion decisively— the rebels secure in their 
mountain fastnesses, the Spaniards holding tlie chief towns and villages on 
the coast. Primo de Rivera therefore sent two well-known Phili])piue natives 
occui)ying high positions in Manila, to propose terms of peace to General 
Agninaldo in Biac-na-Bato. A council of the rovolvitionary government was 
held, in which it was agreed to lay down arms on condition ot certain re- 
forms b(;iiig introduced. The principal of these were: 

"1. The expulsion, or at least .secularization, of the religious orders, and 
the inhibition of these orders from all oilicial vetoes in civil administration. 

"3. A general amnesty for all rebels, and guarantees for their personal se- 
curity and from the vengeance of the friars and parish priests after return- 
ing to their homes. 

"3. Radical reforms to curtail the glaringabuses in public administration. 

"4. Freedom of the press to denounce official corruption and blackmailing. 

"5. Representation in the Spanish Parliament. 

"0. Abolition of the iniciuitous system of secret deportation of political 
suspects, etc. 

"Primo de Rivera agreed to these reforms in sum and substance, but made 
it a condition that tlie principal rebel leaders must leave the country during 
His Majesty's pleasure. As these had lost all their property or had had it 
confiscated "and ])lundcrcd, the Government agreed to j^rovide them with 
funds to live in a becoming manner on foreign soil. 

" The rebels laid down their arms and peace was apparently secured, but 
no'sooner had they done so and returned to their houses than the intransigent 
religious orders commenced at once to again persecute tliem and trumj) up 
imaginary charges to procure their i-earrest. The Spanish Government, on 
its side, imagining itself secure, desisted from carrying out the; promised re- 
forms, tliinking another trick like tliat played on the Cubans after the peace 
of Zanjou, arranged by Martinez Campos, might succeed. The Filipinos 
however, with their business before them, refused to be made dupes ot, and 
have taken up arms again, not alone in the immediate districts around 
Manila, but throughoutlho archipelago, which merely awaits the signal from 
General Aguinaldo to rise en masse, no doubt carrying with them the native 
troojis hitherto loyal, and for which loyal service they have received no 
thanks but only ingratitude." 

Tills brief account of the events leading up to the last rebellion rgu'nst 
Spanish rule preceded thestory of how General Aguinaldo and his men came 
to be in Singapore to consult with the Filipino leaders there and the narra- 
tive of tlie conferences between the Filipino leader and the representative of 
the United States. The article sent by Consul Pratt concluded with the fol- 
lowing terse summing up of the policy of the Filipinos: 

" G eneral Aguinaldo's poli<:y embraces the independence of the Phili]5pines, 
whoso internal affairs would be controlled tinder European and American 
advisers. American protection would be desirable temporarily, on the same 
lines as that which might be instituted hereafter in Cuba. Tlie iiorts of the 
Philip])ines would be free to the trade of the world, safeguards being en- 
acted against an influx of Chinese aliens who would compete with the indus- 
trial pojjulation of the country. There would be a complete reform of the 
present corrupt judicature of the country under exiDeriencod European law 
officers. Entire freedom of the press would bo established, as well as the 
right of public meeting. Tliere would be general religious toleration, and 
steps would be taken for the abolition and expulsion of the tyrannical reli- 
gious fraternities who have laid such strong hands on every branch of civil 
administration. Pull provision would be given for the exploitation of the 
natural resources and wealth of the country by roads and railways and by 
the removal of hindrances to enterprise and investment of cajjital. Spanish 
officials would be removed to a place of safety until opportunity offered to 
return them to Spain. The ]ireservation of public safety and order and the 
checking of reprisals against Spaniards would, naturally, have to be a first 
care of the Government in the new state of things." 

THE PHILIPPINE CENSORSniP— PRESIDENT M'KINLEY DETEKMINED TO SUP- 
PRESS I>AMAG1NG TRUTHS A150UT HIS WAH OF AGGRESSION— PHRASIOS 
WHICH, IT IS SAID, WAR DEPARTMENT SUPPLIES— " SITUATION IMPROV- 
ING," "REBELS DISINTEGRATING," "ENEMY ROUTED WITH GREAT 
SLAUGHTER," "BETTER CLASS OF NATIVES FRIENDLY," ETC. 

[Special to the New York World.] 

Washington, June 1C,1509. 
The President is determined to continue to enforce the censorship of private 
and press dispatches at Manila. Within a few days he has intimated forcibly 

4571 



53 

to General Corbin that too much iuforniation is bein^ made pullii- from tho 
War Dei)artment. 

General Otis is in supreme authority over tho Manila ronsorshii), ami it is 
not within the War Secretary's province to oriler its abatement. 

NEWSPAPEU COUUESPONDENTS WAH.NED. 

jSTewspaper correspondents are forbidden by General Otis to file prtss re 
ports from Hongkoui^, and arc warned that if they evade the censorship by 
this method their "lisefulness to their papers will coa^c iniint-diately." 

Colonel Thompson, the first press censor at Key \Vi -^t. is now in charge at 
Manila. In a i)rivate letter to an officer here C'olonel Thomp-on writes: •' My 
duties are exceedingly trying."' 

STEREOTYPED PHRASES WHICH IT IS SAID WAR DEPARTMENT SUPPMES. 

Authentic information regarding the true situation in IManila can not bo 
obtained from the dispatches posted at the War Department. Advices re- 
garding the situation are suppressed. It is said that the War Department 
officials go so far as to insert phrases in the official reports as given out. 
Among the favorite expressions of the official editors of t he a<l vices trom Otis 
are: "Situation improving; rebels disintegrating." •Kneniy routed with 
great loss." "Rebels routed; do not think will malco another stand. " "Bet- 
ter class of natives friendly to Americans." , „ • 1 i. 

The World correspondent is informedonhighauthority that the President 
himself not only approves this method, but has directed it, so that the public 
shall not get the truth from Manila. 

FILIPINOS DANGEROUS FOES— ADMIRAL, DEWEY\'5 FLEET ENGINEER SAYS 
IT WILL HE HARD TO CONQUER THE.M. 

Baltimore, June 10, isoo. 

Commander John D. Ford, who was Admiral Dewey's fleet engineer, has 
returned to his home here from Manila. . ,, ,., i. 

" When I left," ho said to tho World correspondent to-night, " wo did not 
hold quite as much ground as during the first of August last year, and our 
lines were restricted to the suburbs of Manila. The troops did push out into 
the country, but could not hold the ground they made by raids. 

IT WILL TAKE IMMENSE ARMY TO CONQUER PHILIPPINES. 

" It is impossible to conquer the people or to gain the islands withoiit more 
troops. If we send a great many more and bend all our energies to doing it 
we can beat them and take the islands, but it would mean a great loss ot lite. 
As it is now it is all wc can do to hold our own. i., • *.i ^ 

The line is always active and there is no relief. Men spend months in the 
trenches, subjected to great mental and physical strain and never knowing 
at what moment they may be assailed. 

A LIBERTY-LOVING PEOPLE, FULL OF COURAGE. 

The Filipinos pictured in the papers are not the men we are fighting. The 
fellows we deal with out there are not ignorant savages fighting with bows 
and arroTs but an intelligent liberty-loving people, full ot courage and de- 
term^ination. Their courage is undoubted, and th-y hght to the death. 

FILIPINOS HAVE A GOOD GOVERNMENT, WHICH OPERATES SUCCESSFULLY. 

Thev arc stronger more determined, and more skillful in the art of war 
than when the filht I g started, and they have \Umm of people to draw 
from They are jmned with Mausers, the best rifle in the world, and are far 

^^They Mvl'^^od^go^ri^S wSich they are operating successfully, and 
iivisorve l2w and oi'der. Thev certainly don't think theirs is a hopeless 
Eghrand I lon^t think anyone 4lse does who knows anything abouc it. 

TO PIE\SE ENGLVND-THAT IS THE REASON M'KINLEY DECIDED TO KEEP 
™ „;, pHILIPPlXES-CAPTAlN O'lARRELL FURNISHES FACTS-THL IMPE- 
RIALIS? CHARGE OF BRIBERY AC^AINST AGUINALDO A CALUMNY. 

In last week's Irish World Capt.Patrick O'Farrell f "^j^^'H^ThiliuDines' 
ing facts concerning tho educational status ot the people "* \'';^,|, ,''M\\? f^*. 
nfn so Vave documentary evidence amonntiiiLr to proof that the Iiapinos 
wei-'eledTo belie'" that thly were allies of ^- ^^^i^^^^^^^^ 
and that they welcomed Americans as del ye ■ s ^^ ho ame to^ 
freedom and self-government. Captain Ol-arrcU concludes nis lectei 

^""u'mustnot bo supposed that it was A guinaldo who organized the rebel 

l.J7i 



54 

forces in LnzoB, for lonj? before either Dowey or Aguinaldo reached Cavite 
there was a strong rebel force threatening Manila. Aguinaldo's arrival en- 
coui'aged and increased this force." 

Our consul at Manila writes, March 19, 1898: 

"Rebellion never more threatening to Spain. Rebels getting arms, 
money, and friends. They outnum])er the Spaniards— residents and sol- 
dierj'. * * * 

"OSCAR F. WILLIAMS, 
" United States Consul, Manila.'''' 
He sends another dispatch later on: 

* * * " Tiie Crown forces are now building a cordon of small forts on 
city's outskirts for defense against natives. * * * Eight thousand native 
insurgents are encamped only 5 miles away. 

"OSCAR F. WILLIAMS, 
'■^United States Consul, Manila, March 27, iSflS." 
(Note that this was five weeks before Dewey got there.) 
Lot us now txirn from the Navy to the Army, and what do we find? Gen- 
eral Anderson was the first general to assume command of our militarj' forces 
in front of Manila. On July 4, 1898, he wrote as follows: 

Headquarters First Brigade, United States Forces. 
Seiior Don Emilio Aguinaldo, 

Commanding Philippine Forces, Cavite, Luzon. 
Genehai,: I have the honor to inform you that the United States of Amer- 
ica, whoso land forces I have the honor to command in this vicinity, being at 
war with theKingdomof Simin. has entire sympathy and most friendly senti- 
ments for the native people of the Philippine Islands. 

For these reasons I desire to have the most amicable relations with you 
and to have you and your people cooxserate with us in military operations 
against the Spanish forces. 

THOMAS M. ANDERSON, Brigadier-General. 

Headquarters First Brigade United States Forces, 

Cavite Arsencd, Philippine Islands, July 10, 1$08. 
Seiior Don Emilio Aguinaldo, 

Commandina General, PhiUppine Forces. 
General: The bearer, MaJ. J. P. Bell, United States Army, was sent by 
Maj. Gen. Wesley Merritt, United States Army, to collect for him, by the time 
of his personal arrival, certain information concerning the strength and posi- 
tions of the enemy and concerning the topography of the country surround- 
ing Manila. 

I would be obliged if you would permit him to see your maps and place at 
his disposal any information you may have on the above subjects, and also 
give him a letter or pass, addressed to your subordinates, which will author- 
ize them to furnish him any information they can on these subjects, and 
to facilitate his passage along the lines upon a reconnoissance around Manila, 
on which I propose to send him. 

I remain, with great respect, your obedient servant, 

THOMAS M. ANDERSON. 
Brigadier-General, United States Volunteers, Commanding. 

HEADQUAKTEriS PIUST BRIGADE, 

United States Exi'editioxahy Fouces, 

Cavite Arsenal, P. I.,.Juli/ r.'l, IdOi. 

Seiior Don Emilio Aguinaldo, 

Commanding General, Pliilippine Forces. 
General: I have the honor to request that passo'' and such other assist- 
ance as practicable be given to the bearer, Lieut. E. J. Bryan, and party, 
who are making a reconnoissance of the surrounding country. Thanking you 
lor assistance given on previous occasions, 

I remain, with great respect, your obedient servant, 

THOMAS M. ANDERSON, 
Brigadier-General, United States Volunteers, Commanding. 

Any fair-minded man will see from the foregoing di-spatches from our con- 
suls, liavai officers, and generals that we were in Luzon as the friends and 
allies of the Filipinos— es^pecially as our declaration of war against Spain dis- 
claimed any intention of land grabbing in Cuba. By a much greater force 
the " Teller " declaration should apply to the Philinpine Islands on the other 
side of the globe. 
4571 



00 

M'KINLEY CHANGED RIS rOLICY TO SUIT ENGLAND'S UESKJNS. ' 

At first we did not intend to keep the Philippines. About th'j early part 
of June, 1898, the English papers began to publish articles urging the Ameri- 
cans to keep the Philippines. England became alarmed at the prospect of a 
republic being set up in the Orient. It would be like starting a prairie fire 
among her Malay subjects in Borneo, Singapore. Hongkong, and her other 
East India possessions. Hence President BIcKinley did not wish to start an- 
other Paul Kruger to set a bad example to the subjects of the Empress of 
India. 

The London Spectator, on the Philippines, hoped the United States would 
keep them, saying: " The weary Titan needs an ally, and the only ally whc^e 
aspirations, ideas, and language are like his own is the great American people. "' 

■'By their action the government has recognized the false principh; that 
Canada is obliged to assist the empire in its wars, which do not interest us. 
This principle is full of menace to us; it may bring us to civil war." 

The vigorous oppcsition among French-Canadians to the dispatch of tho 
contingent was verv strikingly illustrated in this city when tho members of 
the Montreal unit left to take the steamer at Quebec. Not a solitary bugle 
note sped the volunteers on their way; not a single member of the city coun- 
cil was present at the railway station to give an official aspect to the occa- 
sion; not a flag or streamer floated from any of the city buildings. 

It was a ditferent scene that Montreal presented some thirty years ago, 
when a contingent of papal zouaves, enrolled from among the French- 
Canadians of the Province, left to fight the battles of the Pope. 

(See General Gi-een's report, page 421, Senate Document No. tii.l 

Aguinaldo is looked up to by his own people as a pure and unselfish patriot. 

Our Government offered to bribe him with a commission in our Army, 
just as was done with tho Sultan of Sulu and his chiefs, but he spurned the 
offered gift. „ , r. 

But it is said that we paid Spain for her sovereignty. Had Spain any sov- 
ereignty at the time we forced her to take twenty millions of our goocl 
American dollars? In the American Encyclopedia of Law. the doctrine is 
stated that "a state is sovereign when it has the supreme power of con- 
trolling its citizens or subjects." , ,. , TJ3 t 

I should like to ask what sovereignty Spain had at the time she sold out 
her interests to us. ^ ■, . t » 

The governor had previously "skedaddled " on a German ship, part qt 
her army was besieged in Manila, and Aguinaldo had the rest of them in his 
possession as prisoners. 

"WHAT SHOULD AVE DO AVITH THE PHILIPPINES?" 

Almost nine out of evervten imperialists say: "I wish we never had gone 
down tlicre, but now that we are there we should support the Administra- 
tion until we conquer or exterminate them." 

Here is Christian logic. We admit that we are wrong, but we should keep 
on doing wrong. What would the world say if we commenced to do right 
now' At war! Congress has not declared war. This is McKinley s war. 

Congress should appoint a commissioner to go to Aguinaldo and say tliat 
the American people are and always have been his friends; that we are going 
to withdraw our armies; that all we want is a good harbor for a coaling sta- 
tion; that we will leave a few of our ships to keep our flag flying in tlie 1 hilip- 
pines, so as to say to all the world, "Hands off I " Aguinaldo and his people 
can start a government of their own. We can remain as their allies and 
friends— not their protectors. „ ,. . , ,. .,, -, „a,-„_ 

In a few years we would see a Philippine republic, with a new A:'?: m mg 
on the ocean's highway. A new republican nation born and brought tm-tli 
by our efforts. We would then have a nation of friends, which would be 
much better, in every way, than a dominion of subjects who would be always 
our enemies. PATRICK OTARRELL. 

Washington, D. C, — -. 

PRESIDENT. AGUISALDO"S PHOCLAMATION. 

The following is a translation of President Aguinaldo's proclamation- 
[Official.] 
Manifesto issued bv the President of the Revolutionary Government. 
To nuj brothers the Filipinos, and ail accredited consul's, and foreigners: 

The proclamation of his excellency General Otis, major-general f ^'ol^n- 
teers o the United States, published yesterday "' tl\e i^^na-si™^^ ^iirnvS fo 
obliges me to circulate the following manifesto m order to make kno^\n to 

4571 



56 

all those wbo can read and understand it that the present document is my 
solemn protest against all that is contained in the proclamation hereinafter 
referred to, because my conscience compels me to do so in fulfillment of my 
pledges to my beloved country and the special and official relations with the 
North American nation. 

General Otis gives himself the title in the proclamation in question of 
military governor of the Philippine Islands. I protest once and a thousand 
times and with all the energy of my soul against such authority. 

I proclaim solemnly that I have not promised, either verbally or in writ- 
ten document, either In Singapore, Hongkong, or the Philippines, to recog- 
nize the sovereignty of America on this beloved soil. 

On the contrary I say that I returned to these islands, transported on an 
American man-of-war, on the 19th of May last year, with the distinct and 
manifest intention of mali:ing war against the Spaniards in order to recover 
our liberty and independence. This is staled in my official proclamation of 
the ;i-tth of the .said month of May, and published in the manifesto addressed 
to the Filipino nation on the 13th of June last, when, in my native town of 
Cavite, I unfurled for the first time our blessed national flag as the sacred 
emblem of that sublime aspiration; and afterwards reasserted to the Ameri- 
can General, General Merritt, the predecessor of General Otis, in the mani- 
festo 1 addressed to the Filipino nation a few days before, demanding from 
the Spanish General Jaudenes the surrender of the city of Manila, in which 
manifesto it is clearly and distinctly stated that the forces of the United 
States, on sea and land, came to give us our liberty and to overturn the cor- 
rupt Spanish administration. I cleclare, once and forever, that both natives 
and foreigners are witnesses that the United States forces on land and sea 
have recognized by this the belligerency of the Filipinos, not only respecting 
our national flag but according it public honors, as it was triumphantly navi- 
gated in our internal waters before all the foreign nations hero represented 
by their respective consuls. 

With reference to the instructions from His Excellency the President of 
the United States, alluded to in his proclamation by General Otis, dealing 
with the administration of the affairs of the Philippine Islands, I protest sol- 
emnly, in the name of God, the root and fountain of all .iustice, on behalf of 
my beloved brothers, against the intrusion of the Government of the United 
States in the sovereignty of these islands. 

I thus protest, in the name of all the Filipino nation, against the intrusion 
referred to, because in reposing their confidence in me by electing me— un- 
worthy though I may be^to the position of president of this nation they 
have imposed upon me the duty to maintain, even to death, the liberty and 
independence of the Filipinos as a nation. 

Lastly, I protest against this unexpected act of the American Government 
in claiming sovereignty in these islands, in virtue of the documents in my 
possession dealing with my relations with the American authorities, the which 
state, in the most unequivocal manner, that the United States did not bring 
me here from Hongkong to make war against the Spaniards in the interests 
of the United States, but for the sake of our liberty and independence, for 
the preservation of which I received verbal pledges, together with a promise 
from them of help and efficacious cooperation. That is the position of affairs, 
and oh, my dear brothers, if we stand united throughout the coiantry, they 
can not filch from us the idea of the liberty and absolute independence which 
has been our noble aspiration. 

Help all of you to effect the end de.sired with the force that comes from 
conviction of the justice of our demands. There nmst be no turning back in 
the path of glory upon which we have already entered. 

AGUINALDO. 

Malolos, January 5, ISOO. 

The above proclamation was posted throughout the city this morning, but 
was torn down by order of the United States authorities. 

I hear the Americans are sending oiit troops to protect the pumping sta- 
tion at the waterworks at Santo'.an. If they do this, I feel sure hostilities 
will commence. The natives will not make the first move, but they will re- 
sist any hostile move on the part of the Americans. 

The situation is certainly very threatening. It is lamentable to think that 
it is due to the procrastination of the Americans to declare a firm and defi- 
nite policy with regard to the Philippines. 

General Whittier, before the peace commission: 

"On October 35, in the company of H. L. Higgius, general manager of the 
Manila Railway, Limited, to Malolos for an interview arranged the day be- 
fore with Aguinaldo. I found his headquarters were in a very nice house, 
ton minuies drive from the railway station; a guard of twenty or thirty sol- 
diers in the courtyard below. We were soon ushered by one of his officers 
4571 



57 

who spoke English to the waiting- room upstairs, and I met Buen Camino a 
wiso lookmg counsellor, whom I met at Aynntamiento the day after the fall 
of Manila. He carried up to the presence of the in.«urgont leader and presi- 
dent, who was dressed, contrary to his usual daily !?arb, in a black smokin" 
jacket of low cut, waistcoat, and trousers, both black, lar^'e white tie; in fact 
the evening dress common at our clubs during the summer." ' 

_ Lieut. John D. Ford, United States Favy, of the Oli/mpia, in a Baltinoro 
interview: "Aguinaldo is in every sense a patriot, and 1 believe he is sincere in 
his efforts for his people and means well. He is also a fighter, and says ho 
means to keep on warring until the natives got a government of their own " 
John Barrett, ex-minister to Siam, in Review of Reviews, July, IW)!): 
'• When Manila was occupied on August i:j, and Aguinaldo was not allowed 
to share the honors of occupation and he was asked to withdraw his forces 
from the neighborhood of Manila, ho advanced the very Idgical argument 
that according to General Merritfs remarkable agreement with aenoral 
Jaudenes it was possible that the American forces might withdraw from Ma- 
nila and leave the Spaniards in possession; and hence he wished to be in a 
strong position in or about Manila to iight the Spaniards if necessary. This 
situation gave Aguinaldo a unique strength of argument In his di.scussions 
with the American leaders, of which he took full advantage. When he would 
say that he could not withdraw far from Manila, because the Americans did 
not themselves know then whether they would remain in possession of the 
islands, it was impossible for his statement to be refuted. In fact, from a log- 
ical standpoint, his conclusion was altogether wise, for if he had withdrawn 
and left the Spaniards in control of Manila they could have held out until 
the arrival of reinforcements, and prepared themselves to reorganize the 
island." 

One of Dewey's officers, writing January 31, 1899, said: 
"Aguinaldo reached Blanila on May 30 of last year, at which time there 
was no evidence, that we knew of, of a native organization. Ho created an 
army in a short time, and immediately commenced to win victories. These 
were to us at the time astonishing, for he defeated detaciiment after detach- 
ment of the Spanish army, took fort after fort, captured resiments with 
arms and ammunition, and in a short time had captured every Spanish sol- 
dier on the island of Luzon or had driven those not captured into Manila. 
Before August 31 these insurgents had actually captured the whole of Luzon, 
excepting Manila, from the Spaniards. After taking all of Luzon, with the 
exceptions named, they conquered the Spanish in the island of Negros and 
the city of Cebu, and before we reached Iloilo they had that city and tho 
whole island of Panay." 

Consul-General Pratt, of Singapore, to Secretary Day, April 28, 1898: 
"General Aguinaldo impressed me as a man of intellectual ability, cour- 
age, and worthy of the confidence that had been placed in him. No close 
observer of what has transpired in the Philippines during the past four years 
could have failed to recognize that General Aguinaldo enjoyed, above all 
others, the confidence of the Philippine insurgents, and the respect .alike of 
the Spanish and foreigners in the islands, all of which vouched for his justice 
and high sense of honor." 

AGUINALBO AND HIS OFFICERS. 

John Foreman, in Contemporary Review, July, 1898, with other papers 
published by Congress with the treaty of peace: 

" Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo is a smart, intelligent man, of a serious mein, small 
in statttre, and apparently a little over 30 years of ago. He has served as tho 
petty governor of his native town in Cavite province and speaks Spanish very 
well for a native. He is by no means an adventurer, with all to gain and noth- 
ing to lose, but a landed proprietor. He is a would-be reformer of his coun- 
try, but, convinced that all apjDeal to Spain is futile, he has at last resorted 
to force. General Pi-imo de Rivera is now safely back in Madrid, and the 
Philippine islanders and the treaty of Bac na Bato are laughed at. This is a 
repetition of Cuban policy. It is on these grounds that Aguinaldo holds him- 
self justified in returning to the scene of his battles, not again to tight for re- 
forms to be effected by those who have no honor, but to cooperate in forcing 
the Spaniards to evacuate the islands." 

Joseph T. Mannix, in Review of Reviews, .June, 1898: 

"I was in Manila last autumn (1897), inquiring into the conditions— polit- 
ical, social, and industrial. * * * I met many kind-hearted and courteorS 
rebel leaders in Manila. These men were holding regular meetings, raising 
money with which to prosecute the insurrection, and were in constant com- 
munication with Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo and the other rebel leaders, who 
were then quartered in the mountains immediately to the northward from 
Manila. * * * I went secretly beyond the city walls and mingled with tlae 
natives at Malaben and elsewhere. The home of every rebel or rebel sym- 
pathizer was the hospitable resting place of any American or other traveler 
4571 



58 

who was taking siiflicient interest in these people to investigate the situation. 
That tliey are a law-abiding people and easily governed is evident trom the 
fact that wlien the present insurrection began, in August, IHtiij, there were 
but l,.")U(i Spanish troops in the i-slands— about one-twentieth the number that 
the British Government has garrisoned in Ireland to-day. And these l,.50O 
troops were natives of the islands. 

" That they are entirely amenable to discipline when they have confidence 
in and respect for their leaders and advisers is evideni; by the fact that for 
more than a year Gon. Emilio Aguinaldo, their acknowledged leader, was 
able to maintain good order and comparatively good discipline among his 
40,(ii)i> to 5().(K10 followers, and imder circumstances where chaos and disorder 
v.'ould be the most natural condition.*.'' 

Rounseville Wildman, United States consul at Hongkong, to Assistant Sec- 
retary Moore, July 1«, 1898: 

"There has been a systematic attempt to blacken the name of Aguinaldo 
and his cabinet on account of the questionable terms of their surrender to 
Spanish forces a year ago this month. It has been said that they sold their 
country for gold, but this has been conclusively disproved, not only by their 
own statements, but by the speech of the late Governor-General Rivera in 
the Spanish senate June 11, Ib'JS. He said that Aguinaldo undertook to sub- 
mit it the Spanish Government would give a certain sum to tbe widows and 
orphans of the insurgents. He then admits that only a tenth part of this sum 
was ever given to Aguinaldo, and that the other promises made he did not 
find it expedient to keep. 

" I was in Hongkong in September, 1897, when Aguinaldo and his leaders ar- 
rived iinder contract with the Spanish Government. They waited until the 
1st of November for the pavment of the promi'-ed money and the fulfill- 
ment of the promised reforms. Only $4llO.(WU. Mexican, was ever placed to 
their credit in the bank, and on the :id of November Mr. F. Agoncilla, late 
minister of foreign affairs in Aguiualdo"s cabinet, called upon me and made 
a proposal, which I transmitted to the State Department in my dispatch No. 
19, dated November 3, 189T. In reply the State Department instructed me 
'to courteously decline to communicate with the Department further re- 
garding the alleged mission.' I obeyed these instructions to the letter until 
the breaking out of the war, when, after consultation with Admiral Dewey, 
I received a delegation from the insurgent junta, and they bound themselves 
to obey all laws of civilized warfare and to place themselves absolutely under 
the orders of Admiral Dewey i f they were permitted to return to Manila. At 
this time their president, Aguinaldo, was in Singapore negotiating through 
Consul General Pratt with Admiral Dewey for his return." 

Rounsevelle Wildman, United States consul at Hongkong, to Mr. Day, No- 
vember 3, 1897: 

"Since my arrival in Hongkong I have been called upon several times by 
Mr. F. Agoncilla, foreign agent and high commissioner, etc., of the new re- 
public of the Philippines. Mr. Agoncilla holds a commission, signed by the 
president, members of cabinet, and general in chief of the republic of Phil- 
ippines, empowering him absolutely v/ith ])0Wer to conclude treaties with 
foreign governments. 

" He is a very earnest and attentive diplomat and a great admirer of the 
United States." 

Gen. Charles A. Whittier before the Peace Commission: 

" From that time the military operations and the conduct of the insurgents 
have been most creditable. Positions taken and the movement of troops 
show great ability on the part of some leader. I do not say it was neces- 
sarily Aguinaldo, but he gave the directions." 

E. Spencer Pratt, United States consul at Singapore, to Secretary Day: 

•'Singapore, Ai^il 28, 1S9S. 
"I have the honor to report that I sent vou on the 27th instant, and con- 
firmed in my dispatch of No. 211 of that date, a telegram, which, deciphered, 
read as follows: 

" 'Secretary of State, WasJdngton: 

" ' General Aguinaldo gone my instance Hongkong arrange with Dewey co- 
operation insurgents Manila. 

"'PRATT.' 

" The General impressed me as a man of intelligence, ability, and courage, 
and worthy the confidence that had been placed in him." 

t!onsul Pratt to Secretary Day, Singapore, June 2, 1898, withinclosure: 
"I have the honor to submit inclosed a telegram from Hongkong of the 
2.5th ultimo, on the situation in the Philippines, published iu Singapore yes- 
terday afternoon, the 1st instant. 
4571 



59 

"Considering the enthusiastic manner General Aeninaldo bas been re- 
ceived by tlio natives and ttie confidence with which ho already appears to 
have inspired Admiral Dewey, it will be admitted, I think, that I did not 
overrate his importance and that I have materially assisted the cause of the 
United States in the Philippines in securing his cooperation." 

Secretary op Navy, Washington: 

Receipt of telegram of June 14 is acknowledged. Agninaldo, insurgent 
leader, with 13 of his staff, arrived May 19, by permission, on J\'ajis/ioii. Es- 
tablished self Cavite, outside arsenal, under protection of our guns, and 
organized his army. I have had several conferences with him, generally of 
a personal nature. Consistently I have refrained from assisting him in any 
way with the foi'ce under my command, and on several occasions I have de- 
clined requests that I should do so, telling him the squadron could not act 
until the arrival of the United States troops. At the same time I have given 
him to understand that I consider insurgents as friends, being opposed to a 
common enemy. He has gone to attend a meeting of insurgent leaders for 
the ijurpose of forming a civil government. 

"more capable of SELF-GOVERXME.STT THAX the natives of CUBA, AXD 
I AM FAMILIAR WITH BOTH RACES." 

Aguinaldo has acted independently of the squadron, but has kept me ad- 
vised of his progress, which has been wondei'ful. I have allowed to pass by 
water recruits, arms, and ammunitions, and to take such Spanish arms and 
ammunition from the arsenal as he needed. Have advised frequently to 
conduct the war humanely, which he has done invariably. My relations 
with hun are cordial, but I'am not in his confidence. The United States has 
not been bound in any way to assist insurgents by any act or promises, and 
he is not, to my knowledge, committed to as.'ist us. I believe he expects to 
capture Manila without my assistance, but doubt ability, they not yet having 
many guns. In my opinion, these people are far superior in their intelli- 
gence and more capable of self-government than the natives of Cuba, and I 
am familiar with both races. 

DEWEY. 

GENERAL ANDERSON ASKED AGUINALDO TO COOPERATE WITH HIM IN 
MILITARY OPERATIONS. 

"Wheji Admiral Dewey sent the above dispatch there were no American 
troops in the Philippines. The first detachment, under command of General 
Anderson, did not arrive until June SO, three days after the sending of the 
afore-quoted dispatch from Hongkoug,and, landing in Cavite, General Ander- 
son lost no time in putting himself in communication with Aguinaldo, whose 
forces had locked up the Spanish in Manila. On the 4th of July, anniversary 
of the great Republic's natal day. General Anderson wrote: 

"Seuor Don Emilio Aguinaldo, 

Commanding Philippine Force, Cavite, Luzon. 
"General: I have the honor to inform you that the United States of 
America, whose land forces I have the honor to command in this vicinity, 
being at war with the Kingdom of Spain, has entire sympathy and most 
friendly sentiments for the native people of the Philippine Islands. For these 
reasons I desire to have the most amicable relations with you and to have 
you and your people cooperate with us in military operations against the 
Spanish forces." 

ANDERSON SAID AMERICANS CAME "TO FIGHT IN THE CAUSE OF YOUR 

PEOPLE."' 

Now, clearly after receiving such communication Aguinaldo had good rea- 
son to believe that General Anderson, and as representing the United States, 
sympathized with the aspirations of the Filipino people. Or rather, would w_© 
say, there was nothing in such communication to disabuse Aguinaldo of such 
belief, biit only that to confirm him in the undoubted impression that his 
negotiations with Consul-General Wildman and others had left upon him. 
Aguinaldo promptly rejoined to this communication of General Anderson in 
one of like friendly tenor, whereupon General Anderson, on July Oth, wrote 
to Aguinaldo, and requesting him to set aside additional camping ground for 
American troops, as follows: 

'• I am encouraged by the friendly sentiments expressed by your excellency 
in your welcome letter received on the 5th instant to endeavor to come to a 
4371 



GO 

definite understanding, wliicb I hope will be advantageous to both. Very 
soon we expect a large addition to our forces, and it must he ap])arent to 
you, as a mihtary officer, that we will I'equire much more room to camp our 
soldiers and also storeroom for our supplies. | Cavite alone was then in con- 
trol of the American forces. Over all the other territory around Manila 
Aguinaldo's forces held control.] For this I would lilce to have j'our excel- 
lency's advice and cooperation, as j'ou are best acquainted with the resources 
Gf this country." 

And three weeks later yet, before the arrival of General Merritt and when 
General Anderson was still in supreme command, we find him requesting 
Aguinaldo for assistance in procuring means of transportation for the Amer- 
ican Army, "as it is to fight in the cause of your x^eople." Clearly we have 
not done bv Aguinaldo as we led him to expect. 
4571 

o 



LiBKHKY Ul- LUNljKti>b 

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIHIIIIIIIIIIII 



illlllllliillllllllllilll 

013 717 880 1 



/ 



